i-. 


i 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


PORTRAIT  BY  HIMSELF 


GEORGE 

FREDERICK 

WATTS 


J.  E.  PHYTHIAN 


WITH  THIRTY-TWO  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


PREFACE 


From  the  first  two  paragraphs  of  the  third  chapter  of 
this  little  book  the  reader  will  learn  why  it  has  been 
added  to  the  books  already  published  on  Watts  and 
his  work.  The  subject  is  one  of  interest  not  easily 
exhausted  ; and,  perhaps,  other  things  equal,  only 
varied  point  of  view  and  emphasis  are  needed  to 
justify  the  writing  of  many  books  upon  it.  The 
reader  will  judge  better  than  the  writer  how  fiir 
this  one  fulfils  the  requirement. 

I am  permitted  to  express  to  Mrs.  Watts  my  grate- 
ful thanks  for  giving  me  much  interesting  informa- 
tion, also  for  looking  through  the  book  before  its 
publication,  and  pointing  out  several  errors  in  matters 
of  fact  which  1 have  thus  been  able  to  correct.  One 
such  error  is  more  easily  set  right  here  than  in  the 
text.  The  pamphlet.  What  should  a Picture  say  I was 
not  actually  written  by  Mr.  Watts,  but  was  compiled 


vi  PREFACE 

from  shorthand  notes,  made  at  the  time,  of  a con- 
versation between  Mr.  Watts  and  Mrs.  Barnett. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  reproduction  of  The 
Good  Samaritan — that  fine  portrayal  of  weakness 
confiding  in  gentle,  kindly  strength — is  taken  from 
a picture  at  Limnerslease,  not  from  the  one  at 
Manchester. 

J.  ERNEST  PHYTHIAN. 


Holmes  Chapel,  Cheshire, 
September  1906. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  . . . . I 

II.  CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL  . . • 

III.  MYTH  AND  LEGEND  . . . 6o 

IV.  CHIVALRY  . . . . 83 

V.  AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY  . . . 9I 

VI.  LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  . . I I 5 

VII.  FAITH,  HOPE,  AND  CHARITY  . . I28 

VIII.  LANDSCAPE  . . . . I32 

IX.  PORTRAITURE  . . . . 1 49 

X.  CONCLUSION  . ■ . . *175 


INDEX 


85 


\ 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS  . . FronttSpicce 

LOVE  AND  DEATH  . . . . 20 

THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN.  . . . 42 

PHYSICAL  ENERGY  . . . . 54 

THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  ZEUS  . . . 68 

GOOD  LUCK  TO  YOUR  FISHING  ! . . .JO 

DAWN  . . ...  74 

DAPHNE  . . . . . y6 

ASPIRATIONS  . . . . 84 

SIR  GALAHAD  . . . . 86 

THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  . * . . . 88 

‘ FOR  HE  HAD  GREAT  POSSESSIONS  ’ . . 90 

THE  SLUMBER  OF  THE  AGES  . . . 96 

MAMMON  . . . . . 102 

EVE  TEMPTED  . . . . I O4 

EVE  REPENTANT  . . . . I06 

ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE  . . .112 

ARIADNE  IN  NAXOS  . . . . II4 


X 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


LOVE  AND  LIFE 

. 

PAGE 
I l6 

TIME,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT 

Il8 

LOVE  TRIUMPHANT 

120 

PRAYER 

124 

HOPE 

128 

NAPLES 

00 

ST.  AGNESE,  MENTONE  . 

140 

A RAIN  CLOUD 

142 

CARDINAL  MANNING 

154 

HON.  MRS.  PERCY  WYNDHAM 

156 

THOMAS  CARLYLE 

166 

ALFRED,  LORD  TENNYSON 

168 

DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

170 

HERR  JOACHIM 

. 

172 

The  abo-ve  pictures  are  reproduced  from 
photographs  taken  by  F.  HoUyer. 


I 


INTRODUCTORY 

When  Watts,  while  yet  little  more  than  a youth,  set 
himself  to  use  the  art  of  painting  rather  to  suggest 
great  thoughts  than  to  give  pleasure  to  the  eye,  he  was 
far  from  creating  a precedent  in  English  art.  A 
certain  school  of  criticism  would  probably  say  that  he 
was  only  furnishing  the  clearest  proof  that  he  was  an 
Englishman.  William  Hogarth,  who  has  been  de- 
scribed, not  by  his  countrymen  alone,  as  the  father  of 
modern  painting,  used  the  art  to  lash  vice  and  to 
stimulate  virtue.  At  a later  date,  William  Blake 
expressed  the  desire  to  be  the  Swedenborg  of  painting, 
and  much  of  his  art  was  a record  of  his  visions  of  the 
spiritual  world.  ‘ As  long  as  humanity  is  humanity,’ 
said  Watts,  ‘man  will  yearn  to  ascend  the  heights 
human  footsteps  may  not  tread,  and  long  to  lift  the  veil 
that  shrouds  the  enigma  of  being,  and  he  will  most 
prize  the  echo  of  this  longing  in  even  the  incoherent 
expression  of  literature,  music,  and  art.’  It  was  even 

B 


2 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


more  than  this  that  Blake  believed  himself  to  be  doing 
in  his  painting. 

Hogarth  and  Blake,  the  one  positive,  the  other 
imaginative,  in  mental  temperament,  are  only  extreme 
cases  of  the  marked  tendency  of  English  art  to  go 
beyond  mere  jesthetic  aims.  It  would  fain  cultivate 
the  wliole  field  of  life  ; and,  if  the  phrase  may  be 
allowed,  would  trench  it  deeply.  English  portrait 
painting  in  the  eighteenth  century  showed  a fuller 
interpretation  of  character  than  the  contemporary  art 
of  other  countries  ; our  landscape  painters  were  the 
first  close  students  of  nature ; our  subject  painters 
could  not  rest  content  with  the  beautiful  presentation 
of  matter  of  little  interest  or  importance  in  itself ; 
they  must  tell  a story,  illustrate  literature  or  history, 
enforce  religion  and  morals.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
such  purposes  have  been  absent  from  the  art  of  other 
countries.  It  is  a question  of  degree.  In  England 
the  importance  of  the  subject  of  a picture  receives 
unusual  emphasis,  and  themes  are  admitted  which  else- 
where would  be  deemed  suitable  only  for  literature, 
and  are  treated  with  an  expressiveness  that  elsewhere 
would  be  held  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  a work  of 
art  in  which  aesthetic  considerations  had  their  proper 
place.  Thus  M.  Chesneau  describes  some  of  Watts’s 
pictures  as  ‘ complicated  and  laboured  compositions. 


INTRODUCTORY 


3 


in  which  the  plastic  element  is  overpowered  by  the 
subject,  and  which,  according  to  the  Latin  conception 
of  art,  can  only  be  regarded  as  errors/  Here  is 
matter  for  much  controversy  ; but  these  things  are  only 
mentioned  by  way  of  approach  to  Watts’s  point  of 
view  with  regard  to  art.  His  predecessors  in  this 
country  had  given  to  English  art  its  distinctive 
character.  Among  his  older  contemporaries  were 
men  such  as  Dyce  and  Haydon,  who  sought  in  their 
various  ways  to  put  art  to  lofty  purpose.  About 
Turner,  whose  career  was  closing  when  that  of  Watts 
was  opening,  more  will  be  said  shortly.  Among 
Watts’s  younger  contemporaries  were  Holman  Hunt, 
Millais  and  Dante  Rossetti,  who  initiated  and  carried 
on,  in  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  a vigorous  revolt 
against  academic  tradition  and  routine,  and  who, 
together  with  Madox  Brown,  helped  to  deliver 
English  art  from  a triviality,  both  of  subject  and  treat- 
ment, into  which  it  was  lapsing. 

Watts  was  not,  then,  a solitary  innovator  in  this 
country  when  he  asserted  for  the  artist  the  right,  nay, 
almost  laid  upon  him  the  duty,  of  having  aims  going 
beyond  the  bounds  of  art  considered  merely  as  the 
giving  of  gesthetic  pleasure,  and  of  putting  those  aims 
in  the  very  forefront  of  his  endeavour.  No  saying  of 
his  has  been  oftener  quoted  than  the  following,  in 


4 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


which  he  has  stated  the  main  purpose  of  his  own 
work  : ‘ My  intention  has  not  been  so  much  to  paint 
pictures  that  will  charm  the  eye,  as  to  suggest  thoughts 
that  will  appeal  to  the  imagination  and  the  heart,  and 
kindle  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  humanity.’  This 
has  been  interpreted  to  mean  that  Watts  did  not  much 
care  whether  or  not  his  pictures  were  beautiful  in 
themselves  so  long  as  their  meaning  was  clearly  and 
forcibly  expressed.  In  an  ultimate  sense  this  may  be 
true.  If  he  had  been  put  to  choice  between  beauty 
and  clear  and  forcible  expression  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing, he  would  have  chosen  the  latter — at  least,  for 
some  of  his  works.  But  he  was  rarely  put  to  this 
choice.  In  fact  it  is  easier  for  the  painter  of  symbolic 
and  allegorical  pictures  to  make  his  work  beautiful 
than  it  is  for  the  landscape,  genre,  historical,  or  por- 
trait painter  ; because  he  is  more  independent  of  mere 
facts  which  are  far  from  being  necessarily  beautiful. 
The  following  passage,  which  has  been  quoted  against 
Watts,  as  showing  him  indiiferent  to  art  ns  such^  is  really 
in  his  favour.  * Then  there  is  another  class  of  picture, 
whose  purpose  it  is  to  convey  suggestion  and  idea. 
You  are  not  to  look  at  that  picture  as  an  actual  repre- 
sentation of  facts,  for  it  comes  under  the  same  category 
as  dreams,  visions,  aspirations,  and  we  have  nothing 
very  distinct  except  the  sentiment,  the  thought,  which 


INTRODUCTORY 


5 


the  artist  produces  by  the  whole  effect.  If  the  paint- 
ing is  bad — the  writing,  the  language  of  art — it  is  a 
pity.  The  picture  is  not  so  good  as  it  should  be,  but 
the  thought  is  there,  and  the  thought  is  what  the  artist 
wanted  to  express,  and  it  is,  or  should  be,  impressed 
upon  the  spectator.^  Here  is  the  clear  assertion  that, 
if  the  art  be  bad,  the  picture  is  not  so  good  as  it  might 
and  ought  to  be  ; and,  elsewhere,  W atts  has  shown 
that  he  well  knew  that  thought  was  best  expressed — as 
it  certainly  is,  whether  in  literature  or  painting — by 
good  art ; for  he  says  : ‘ Heroic  art  must  be  noble  in 
its  treatment  of  the  means  at  its  disposition,  line,  colour 
and  texture,  and  must  have  a correspondingly  noble 
subject,  though  subject  has  perhaps  less  to  do  with  it  than 
character  of  utterance  ’ ; and,  again  : ‘ A great  work 
of  art  is  a noble  theme  treated  in  a noble  manner, 
awakening  our  best  and  most  reverential  feelings, 
touching  our  generosity,  our  tenderness,  or  disposing  us 
generally  to  seriousness — a subject  of  human  endur- 
ance, of  human  justice,  of  human  aspiration  and  hope, 
depicted  worthily  by  the  special  means  art  has  in  her 
power  to  use  ’ ; and,  again  : * The  highest  subjects 
demand  the  noblest  treatment ; otherwise  there  results 
some  shock  to  our  sense  of  congruity.’  That  a lofty 
appeal  to  thought  and  feeling  must  inevitably  be  in- 
compatible with  good  art  in  painting,  would  have  been 


6 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


as  absurd  a statement  to  Watts,  as  to  his  friend  Tenny- 
son would  have  been  a similar  statement  with  regard 
to  the  relation  of  thought  and  feeling  to  good  art  in 
poetry. 

It  is  worth  while,  I think,  in  order  further  to  em- 
phasise Watts’s  regard  for  art  as  such,  and  it  will  also 
be  otherwise  interesting,  to  quote  one  or  two  passages 
from  his  estimate  of  the  art  of  Haydon,  appended  to 
Tom  Taylor’s  edition  of  the  Autobiography  of  that 
unhappy  painter.  ‘ I think  we  shall  find,  upon 
examination,’  says  Watts,  ‘that  all  art  v/hich  has 
been  really  and  permanently  successful  has  been  the 
exponent  of  some  great  principle  of  mind  or  matter, — 
the  illustration  of  some  great  truth, — the  translation  of 
some  paragraph  out  of  the  book  of  nature.  If  Haydon 
read  therein  and  strove  to  expound  the  lesson,  he  read 
too  hastily  to  understand  fully,  and  did  not,  like 
Demosthenes,  take  pains  to  perfect  a defective  utter- 
ance. His  art  is  defective  in  principle  and  wanting  in 
attractiveness, — not  sufficiently  beautiful  to  please, — 
not  possessing  those  qualities  of  exact  imitation  which 
attract,  amuse,  give  confidence,  and  even  flatter,  be- 
cause they,  in  a manner,  take  the  spectator  into  partner- 
ship, and  make  him  feel  as  if  they  were  almost 
suggestions  of  his  own. — “This  is  what  I have  seen, 
and  what  I would  do,  if  I had  time  to  paint ; a7ich^  to 


INTRODUCTORY 


7 


son  pittore.'^'^  He  further  says  of  Haydon  : ‘To 
particularise — I should  say  that  his  touch  is  generally 
woolly,  and  his  surface  disagreeable  ; that  the  dabs  of 
white  on  the  lights  and  the  dabs  of  red  in  the  shadows 
are  untrue  and  unpleasing ; that  his  draperies  are 
deficient  in  richness  and  dignity,  and  his  general  effect 
much  less  good  than  one  would  expect  from  the  good- 
ness of  parts,  which  I think  arises  principally  from  the 
coarseness  of  the  handling ; that  his  expressions  of 
anatomy  and  general  perception  of  form  are  the  best 
by  far  that  can  be  found  in  the  English  school ; and  I 
feel  even  a direction  towards  something  that  is  only  to 
be  found  in  Phidias.  But  this  is  not  true  invariably  : 
his  proportion  is  very  often  defective,  especially  in  the 
arms  of  his  figures,  and  his  hands  and  feet,  though 
well  understood,  are  often  dandified  and  uncharacter- 
istic.’ 

All  the  passages  quoted  above  are,  of  course,  of 
general  interest,  as  showing  how  Watts  thought  both 
about  the  principles  and  the  practice  of  his  art.  They 
are  of  particular  interest  with  reference  to  the  point  we 
are  considering  at  the  moment ; because  they  show 
that  Watts  was  the  reverse  of  indifferent  to  appro- 
priateness and  beauty  of  expression  and  to  good  crafts- 
manship. His  chief  aim  might  be  to  suggest  great 
thoughts  rather  than  to  charm  the  eye ; but  he  knew 


8 GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

that  the  latter  was  essential  to  the  complete  success  of 
the  former.  Dull  painting  is  of  no  more  use  than  dull 
talking  or  writing.  One  is  reminded  of  a verse  in 
Coventry  Patmore’s  Angel  in  the  House : 

“ Beauty  deludes.”  O shaft  well  shot, 

To  strike  the  mark’s  true  opposite  ! 

That  ugly  good  is  scorn’d  proves  not 
’Tis  beauty  lies,  but  lack  of  it. 

To  whatever  extent  any  one  may  think  that  Watts’s 
work  fails  in  beauty,  this  at  least  is  certain  : it  is  not 
because  beauty  was  undervalued  by  him.  At  the  same 
time,  he  would  not  make  it  the  be-all  and  the  end-all 
of  art ; and  we  shall  find  him,  more  than  once,  when 
moved  to  give  expression  to  his  horror  of  evil,  imagin- 
ing for  its  personification,  such  creatures  as  Pope  must 
surely  have  conjured  up  when  he  wrote 

Vice  is  a monster  of  so  frightful  mien 

As,  to  be  hated,  needs  but  to  be  seen. 

With  regard  to  this,  one  ventures  to  say  that  it  will  be 
an  evil  day  when  the  grotesque  and  the  horrible  are 
banished  from  the  domain  of  art,  and  evil  is  tolerated, 
and  even  welcomed,  as  so  often  now,  if  only  it  be 
seductively  beautiful  in  appearance.  And  even  in  such 
pictures  as  Mammon  and  The  Minotaur,  where  these 
monstrous  creatures  appear,  we  find  a dignity  in  the 
treatment,  a power  in  the  design,  and  a harmony  in 


INTRODUCTORY 


9 

the  colour,  that  satisfy  the  aesthetic  sense,  even  while  a 
moral  revulsion  is  being  aroused.  But  such  pictures  as 
these  are  exceptional  with  W atts  ; and,  in  the  great 
majority  of  his  imaginative  works,  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  that  inform  them  are  such  as  are  not  merely 
compatible  with,  but  even  require,  without  reserve  or 
exception,  beauty  of  expression,  sometimes  resplendent, 
sometimes  restrained,  and  sometimes  subdued  to  a 
quietude  that  will  go  hand  in  hand  with  sadness. 

We  have  to  consider,  however,  that  while  this  may 
be  true,  and  while  Watts  may  have  recognised  its 
truth,  he  may,  oftener  than  not,  have  failed  to  wed 
truth  and  beauty  in  practice.  The  appeal  must  finally 
be,  not  to  what  he  has  thought  and  said,  but  to  what  he 
has  done.  Are  his  pictures,  we  have  to  ask,  beautiful 
in  tone,  colour,  line,  etc.,  apart  from  the  quality  of 
their  subject-matter  ? The  answer  is  a clear  affirma- 
tive. I'he  following  incident  is  instructive  in  this 
connexion.  The  present  writer  was  on  one  occasion 
in  St.  PauRs  Cathedral  with  a friend  who  was  skilled 
in  both'  architecture  and  painting,  and  who  caught  sight 
of  Wattses  TimCy  Deaths  and  Judgment^  hung  against 
one  of  the  great  piers  of  the  nave,  before  he  was  near 
enough  to  distinguish  the  figures  in  it,  much  less  their 
purport.  ‘ What  is  that  ? ’ he  exclaimed.  ‘ I can’t 
see  what  it  is,  and  I don’t  care  ; but  it  is  a wonderfully 


o GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


fine  thing !’  This  is  true  of  Watts’s  works  with  few 
if  any  exceptions  : they  play  upon  the  emotions 
through  the  sight  as  music  through  hearing  ; and — an 
important  point,  to  be  considered  later,  with  reference 
to  individual  pictures — the  art  fits  the  thought  as  sym- 
pathetically written  music  fits  the  words  of  a song.  To 
accomplish  this  was  his  desire.  Sir  William  Rich- 
mond quotes  Watts  as  saying:  ‘I  would  like  my 
work  to  appeal  to  the  eye  and  mind  as  music  appeals 
to  the  ear  and  heart.  I have  something  that  I want  to 
say  which  may  be  useful  to  and  touch  mankind,  and  to 
say  it  as  well  as  I can  in  form  and  colour  is  my  endea- 
vour ; more  than  that  I cannot  do.’ 

At  the  Tate  Gallery,  Watts’s  Psyche,  having  been 
purchased  under  the  terms  of  the  Chantrey  Bequest, 
hangs  apart  from  the  pictures  given  by  himself.  F acing 
it  on  the  opposite  wall  is  another  Psyche,  by  Lord 
Leighton.  More  than  any  other  pictures  in  the  same 
room  these  two  arouse  at  first  glance  aesthetic  emotion. 
We  shall  shortly  compare  Turner  and  Watts  with 
regard  to  the  subject  of  their  paintings.  We  may 
compare  them  also  with  regard  to  the  quality  we 
are  now  considering.  It  is  their  pictures  at  the 
Tate  Gallery,  more  than  those  of  all  but  a few 
other  painters,  with  the  beauty  or  impressiveness 
of  which  we  could  well  rest  content  apart  from 


INTRODUCTORY  1 1 

any  question  as  to  what  they  mean  or  what  they 
represent. 

One  cannot  but  think  that  some  critics  have  ap- 
proached Watts’s  work  with  an  insurmountable  preju- 
dice. * He  has  tried  to  suggest  great  thoughts,’  they 
seem  to  say,  ‘therefore  his  art  must  be  bad.’  They 
are  angry  because  the  artist  asks  them  to  think  ; and 
the  anger  disturbing  both  their  vision  and  their  logic, 
they  conclude  that,  because  they  see  that  which  they 
do  not  wish  to  see,  what  they  wish  to  see  cannot 
be  there.  Such  questions  as  these  cannot  be  settled 
by  appeal  to  authority.  It  may  be  useful,  however, 
to  quote  v/hat  a fellow -painter,  one  whose  work  is 
not  of  the  didactic  kind,  has  to  say  of  the  art  of 
Watts  as  such.  In  a lecture  delivered  in  connexion 
with  the  Manchester  Watts  Exhibition  in  1905, 
Mr.  George  Clausen  says  : ‘ Every  tone,  every 
suggestion  has  its  meaning ; take  for  instance  the 
dark  and  threatening  sky  in  the  picture,  Can 
these  Bones  Live  ? But  these  artifices  are  not  at  first 
apparent.  They  are  used  so  splendidly  that  the 
pictures  are  in  themselves  beautiful  as  decorations, 
were  there  no  meaning  in  them  at  all ; and  if  it  is 
possible  to  name  one  governing  quality  in  Watts,  I 
should  say  that  it  is  this  sense  of  beauty,  a conscious- 
ness of  the  presence  of  beauty  in  everything,  except 


12  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

when  we  take  the  trouble  to  mar  it  ourselves ; and 
that  his  aim  in  all  he  did  was  to  bring  others  to  a con- 
sciousness of  this  that  the  world  might  in  some  way 
be  bettered  by  his  great  gifts/ 

There  are  other  points  that  would  have  to  be  con- 
sidered if  we  were  attempting  a complete  discussion  of 
the  relation  of  meaning  to  beauty  in  works  of  art,  and 
in  the  work  of  Watts  in  particular.  Not  to  prove  or 
disprove  theories,  however,  but  to  make  it  clear  that 
Watts  sought  to  unite  thought  with  beauty,  and  did, 
in  fact,  bring  them  together  generally,  if  not  always 
and  in  every  particular,  is  sufficient  for  our  immediate 
purpose.  Let  us  pass  now  to  some  general  remarks 
about  the  subject-matter  of  his  works ; and,  little 
likely  as  this  might  be  thought  beforehand,  we  shall 
find  it  instructive  briefly  to  compare  his  work  with 
that  of  Turner,  whose  day,  as  already  said,  was  closing 
when  that  of  Watts  was  opening. 

Both  Turner  and  Watts  enriched  the  public  art 
collections  of  their  country  by  the  gift  of  a consider- 
able portion  of  their  life-work.  This  might  have 
meant  no  more  than  that  each  of  them  was  public- 
spirited  and  had  confidence  in  the  great  and  lasting 
value  of  what  he  had  wrought.  But  the  two  gifts 
share  a further,  and,  for  the  purpose  of  this  book, 
a most  instructive  significance.  The  work  of  Turner 


INTRODUCTORY 


*3 

and  the  work  of  Watts  have  much  in  common,  both 
as  art,  and  in  those  aims  that  go  beyond  the  aims  of 
art  in  the  narrow  acceptation  of  the  word.  The  two 
artists  are  complementary  to  each  other. 

We  call  Turner  a landscape  painter.  The  word  is 
a poor  one  at  the  best ; but  we  have  not  a better  one 
and  it  has  to  serve.  At  its  highest,  landscape  painting 
is  one  means  of  expressing  the  thought  and  emotion 
awakened  in  men  by  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  earth 
and  sea  and  sky.  Strictly,  perhaps,  all  animal,  in- 
cluding human,  life  ought  to  be  excluded  from  its 
domain.  Few  landscape  painters  do  this  ; and,  such 
life  once  admitted,  we  pass,  by  insensible  degrees,  to  a 
point  where  its  interest  becomes  equal  to  or  greater  than 
that  of  the  landscape.  Comparatively  few  of  T urner’s 
finished  drawings  and  paintings  are  without  some  human 
interest.  Pure  landscape  is  to  be  found  mainly  in  his 
studies  and  sketches.  And  in  many,  and  among  those 
some  of  the  most  important,  of  his  finished  works,  the 
human  interest  predominates.  Many  of  his  pictures, 
perhaps  most  of  them,  may  be  compared  to  the  bird^s- 
eye  views  with  the  aid  of  which  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy 
carries  on  the  action  of  his  drama  “The  Dynasts.’’ 
He  takes  us  to  an  exceeding  high  place  and  shows  us, 
far  below,  the  actors  in  the  drama  as  they  pass  from 
one  scene  of  action  to  another.  In  like  manner 


14  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

Turner  paints  the  drama  of  human  life  as  seen  from 
the  outside,  from  afar,  on  its  stage  of  earth  and  sea, 
with  the  sky  over  all ; often,  indeed,  with  little  or  no 
other  surrounding  than  the  shelters  and  store-houses 
man  has  formed  for  himself  with  varied  ingenuity  far 
exceeding  that  with  which  the  bees  build  cells  for  their 
honey-stores,  and  the  birds,  nests  for  their  young. 

Turner’s  feeling  for  the  human  drama  was  constant ; 
his  treatment  of  it  was  casual.  He  made  no  attempt 
to  build  up  a formal  epic  ; but  he  collected  an  immense 
amount  of  material  for  one ; and  the  epic  takes  form 
in  the  mind  of  the  student  of  his  works.  At  times  a 
strong  appeal  to  his  imagination  would  compel  a 
methodical  and  concentrated  expression.  In  particular 
was  this  the  case  with  the  story  of  Carthage,  which 
he  told,  in  his  way,  in  a succession  of  pictures.  He 
was  similarly  moved  by  the  fortunes  and  the  fate  of 
Rome  and  of  Venice.  Myth  and  legend  find  their 
place  in  his  work,  in  such  oil  paintings  as  T/.'C 
Garden  of  the  Hesperidcsj  Apollo  and  the  Python y 
and  Ulysses  deriding  PolyphemuSy  and  in  such  Liber 
Studiorum  plates  as  Aesacus  and  Hesperky  Procris 
and  Cephalus  and  Jason,  We  may,  in  estimating 
Turner’s  work,  have  to  emphasise  his  portrayal  of  the 
world  in  which  man  lives ; though,  even  then,  the 
beauty  and  the  grandeur  of  that  world  were,  for  him,  a 


INTRODUCTORY 


15 

revelation  to  man  of  the  deep  harmonies  of  his  own 
nature ; but  man  in  the  midst  of  his  world  was  never 
far  from  Turner’s  thought,  and  was  rarely  omitted 
from  his  drawings  and  paintings. 

What  resemblance  and  what  difference  is  there 
between  Turner  and  Watts?  They  both  interpreted 
human  life  and  destiny  ; but  that  which  Turner  treated 
casually,  Watts  treated  systematically;  his  main  pur- 
pose, only  partially  attained,  being  to  build  up  a formal 
epic  of  humanity.  Again,  that  which  Turner  looked 
on  and  showed  us  from  a distance.  Watts  looked  at 
and  showed  us  from  close  at  hand  ; nay,  we  may  say, 
from  within.  Such  a myth  as  that  of  Procris  and 
Cephalus,  when  painted  by  Turner,  touches  us  with 
but  a gentle  melancholy;  Watts’s  Orpheus  and 
Eurydtce  awakens  a poignant  sympathy.  It  is  in 
this  way  that  the  two  artists,  the  two  poets,  the  two 
seers — for  they  were  all  these,  as  all  these  are  finally 
one — were  complementary  to  each  other.  Watts 
underestimated,  perhaps,  the  human  interest  in  Turner’s 
work.  Comparing  Turner  with  Michel  Angelo, 
Raphael  and  Titian,  he  says  : ‘ lacking  the  directly 
human  appeal  to  human  sympathies,  his  work  must  be 
put  on  a lower  level.’  We  are  not  concerned  either 
to  accept  or  reject  such  a standard  of  worth.  The 
saying  is  instructive  to  us  as  evidence  of  Watts’s  con- 


i6  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


sciousness  of  the  intensity  of  his  own  realisation  of  the 
human  drama.  What  with  Turner  is  general,  with 
him  is  individual.  His  work  is  to  Turner’s  what 
Shakespeare’s  plays  are  to  mere  historical  narrative. 
Where  Turner  reminds  us  that  man  goeth  forth  unto 
his  labour  until  the  evening,  Watts  drives  home  the 
final  significance  of  the  labour  : that  whatsoever  a man 
soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap. 

At  times  Turner  gets  almost,  if  not  quite,  on 
W atts’s  ground.  The  young  god  in  Apollo  and  the 
Python  is  a Sir  Galahad  fighting  ; and  the  emotion 
stirred  by  The  Old  Temeraire  is  quick  and  individual, 
the  ship,  though  a thing  without  life,  calling  out  our 
sympathy  as  if  it  could  be  conscious  that  the  day  of 
its  strength  and  pride  had  gone  by.  Watts  strikes  the 
same  note  in  the  old  horse  of  his  'Patient  Life  of  Un- 
requited Toil,  In  his  landscapes  he  is  on  Turner’s 
ground,  though,  when  there,  he  reports  things  with  less 
formal  art  and  in  more  general  terms. 

A full  realisation  of  the  human  drama,  the  constant 
thought  of  men  not  merely  as  units,  but  as  members 
one  of  another,  the  living  and  the  dead  and  the 
generations  yet  unborn,  is  the  feature  of  Watts’s  work 
upon  which  we  must  seize  at  the  outset  and  not  let  go 
until  the  end.  It  is  the  guiding  thought  that  gives  to 
all  the  rest  unity  and  direction.  No  lessening  of  the 


INTRODUCTORY 


17 


significance  of  the  individual  is  implied  by  it,  but 
quite  the  reverse.  The  individual  is  raised  immeasur- 
ably above  what  he  could  otherwise  be,  because  he  can 
help  to  make  or  mar  the  lives  of  others,  because  he 
has  entered  into  an  inheritance,  and,  in  due  time,  must 
leave  it  to  others,  diminished  or  increased.  It  is  to 
this  that  Wattses  portraits  owe  much  of  their  impres- 
siveness ; for  he  did  not  merely  or  mainly  paint  the 
portraits  of  those  who  came  to  him,  with  money  in 
their  hands,  to  have  their  features  and  their  dress 
recorded,  for  pride  or  the  pleasure  of  their  friends  ; he 
singled  out  those  of  whom  he  believed  that,  by  reason 
of  their  thoughts  or  deeds,  the  people  of  the  days  to 
come  would  be  grateful  to  have  a visible  record, 
revealing  the  spirit  through  form  and  expression.  So 
the  meaning  of  the  portraits  which  he  has  given  to  the 
national  collection  is  deepened,  if,  as  we  stand  before 
them,  we  think  of  the  subject-pictures  in  the  National 
Gallery  of  British  Art ; and  the  full  significance  of  any 
work  of  Watts  is  only  to  be  grasped  by  reference  to  all 
else  that  he  has  done.  Happily  he  has  himself  made  it 
easy,  for  any  one  that  will  take  a little  trouble,  to  study 
his  life-work  as  a whole,  not  merely  by  means  of 
reproductions,  but  through  the  original  paintings  ; for, 
in  addition  to  the  gifts  to  the  national  collections  in 
London,  and  to  various  provincial  galleries  and 
c 


1 8 GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


museums,  a large  and  representative  collection  of  his 
works  is  to  be  retained  in  the  gallery  specially  built  for 
it,  close  by  his  country-home  near  Guildford,  and 
there,  those  who  care  to  do  so  will  be  able,  amid 
beautiful  surroundings,  closely  associated  with  the 
artist,  quietly  to  enjoy  his  generous  gift. 

It  is  customary  to  call  a man  with  aims  such  as 
W atts  had,  a teacher.  The  term  is  not  inappropriate, 
but  it  is  inadequate.  It  is  not  sufficiently  sympathetic. 
It  suggests  mere  instruction,  with  only  an  external 
relation  between  the  instructed  and  the  instructor. 
Bunyan’s  ‘ Mr.  Interpreter  ’ is  more  what  we  need. 
An  artist  does  not  only  give  us  information  ; if  he  be 
worth  his  name,  he  appeals  to  our  emotions.  So 
Tolstoy  in  ‘ What  is  Art  ? ’ says  that  imitation,  the 
mere  statement  of  facts  cannot  serve  as  a measure  of 
the  quality  of  art,  ‘for  the  chief  characteristic  of  art 
is  the  infection  of  others  with  the  feelings  the  artist  has 
experienced,  and  infection  with  a feeling  is  not  only 
not  identical  with  description  of  the  accessories  of 
what  is  transmitted,  but  is  usually  hindered  by  super- 
fluous details.  The  attention  of  the  receiver  of  the 
artistic  impression  is  diverted  by  all  these  well-observed 
details,  and  they  hinder  the  transmission  of  feeling  even 
when  it  exists.’  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  who  denies 
beauty  to  much,  at  any  rate,  of  W^atts’s  work,  admits 


INTRODUCTORY 


19 

that  it  has  the  power  thus  described  by  Tolstoy. 
‘And  yet  you  linger,’  he  says,  in  English  Conternporary 
Paintings  ‘ for  whilst  W atts’s  colour  distracts  the 
eye,  his  ideas  penetrate  to  the  depths  of  the  soul, 
and  slowly  arouse  something  that  was  sleeping  there. 
These  myths,  so  laboriously  brought  forth  by  the 
artist  apart  from  all  picturesque  feeling,  by  the  mere 
strength  of  his  character  and  the  single  energy  of  his 
heart,  we  recognise  with  surprise  are  human,  are  of 
the  present  day,  are  alive.’  The  French  writer  has, 
so  I think,  both  misjudged  Watts’s  art,  and  often  mis- 
understood his  meaning  ; but  it  is  clear  that  W atts  has 
stirred  his  feeling. 

Would  not  Watts  have  expressed  his  main  purpose 
better,  if  instead  of  saying  that  he  wished  to  suggest 
great  thoughts,  he  had  said  that  he  wished  to  awaken 
deep  and  pure  emotions  ? He  has  done  both  ; but  one 
thinks  that  the  former  is  always  subordinate  to  the 
latter.  When,  for  example,  he  suggests  the  thought 
that  death  is  really  the  friend,  both  of  love  and  of  life, 
it  is  not  that  we  may  be  convinced  of  this  as  a fact, 
but  that  recognition  of  the  fact  may  change  our  feeling 
with  regard  to  death,  in  the  same  way  as  the  thought  of 
St.  Paul  about  the  meaning  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
made  him  exclaim,  in  a rush  of  emotion  ; ‘ O death, 
where  is  thy  sting  ? O grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ? ’ 


20  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


Watts  painted  what  he  thought  he  had  seen  clearly, 
because  he  had  also  felt  it  deeply,  and  wished  to  arouse 
like  thought  and  feeling  in  others. 

It  was  quite  simple  thought  and  feeling  that  Watts 
thus  sought  to  awaken.  He  was  not  a philosopher 
building  up  an  elaborate  system.  If  his  language  be 
understood,  that  which  he  has  to  say  will  be  heard  by 
the  common  people  gladly.  His  pictures  gave  real 
pleasure  in  Canon  Barnett’s  Whitechapel  Exhibitions, 
and  it  was  a great  satisfaction  to  him  to  know  this. 
The  gift  of  so  much  of  his  work  to  public  galleries 
shows  that  he  hoped  to  be  of  use  to  the  many.  He 
might,  of  course,  have  used  an  art-language  that  would 
have  made  his  meaning  more  immediately  and  easily 
intelligible.  One  often  sees  people  of  the  kind  he 
desired  to  influence,  leaving  his  pictures  after  a brief 
stare  of  bewilderment.  They  w'ould  have  no  such 
difficulty  with  Sir  Luke  Fildes’s  picture  The  Doctor, 
or  Mr.  Frank  Bramley’s  Hopeless  Dazvn,  Was 
Watts  justified  in  putting  initial  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  large  numbers,  indeed,  of  the  great  majority,  of  the 
people  who  would  see  his  works  ? Take,  for  example, 
the  picture.  Love  and  Death.  The  story  of  the 
incident  that  led  to  the  painting  of  this  picture  has 
often  been  told.  Watts  was  painting  the  portrait  of  a 
young  nobleman  of  great  promise,  who,  however,  was 


LOVE  AND  DEATH 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

suffering  from  incurable  disease.  All  that  human 
skill  could  do  for  him,  was  done.  Every  care  was 
lavished  upon  him ; but  the  disease  would  not  be 
denied.  Each  time  that  Watts  saw  him  its  ravages 
were  more  apparent ; and  then  came  the  inevitable 
end.  This  sorrowful  incident  so  wrought  upon  him 
that  he  felt  impelled  to  express  his  emotion,  and  so  he 
painted,  not  the  picture  of  a dying  youth,  with  loving, 
sorrowing  friends  around  him,  but  an  allegory  of 
Death : a grey-robed  figure,  gently  but  firmly  putting 
aside  Love,  who  would  fain  prevent  Death’s  entry  into 
the  house  of  Life.  It  was  said  a few  sentences  back 
that  Watts  could  have  made  his  meaning  more  easily 
and  immediately  intelligible.  This  is  true,  perhaps, 
only  as  to  part  of  his  meaning.  In  this  instance  he 
could  have  shown  that  death  was  a sorrowful  thing  ; 
he  could  have  evoked  feelings  of  sympathy  as  is  done 
by  Sir  Luke  Fildes’s  picture.  But  how  better  than  by 
the  gentle  mien  and  bowed  head  of  the  Death  in  his 
picture  could  he  have  said,  as  he  wanted  to  say,  that 
death,  could  we  know  all  that  it  means,  would  be 
found  no  foe  to  love  and  life  ; and  that  love  should 
meet  death  calmly,  not  with  frantic  resistance  ? Its 
language  understood,  such  a picture  as  this  will  come 
up  before  the  mental  vision  in  time  of  sorrow,  bearing 
a message  of  healing. 


22  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


A brief  comparison  has  been  made  between  Watts 
and  Turner  ; it  will  be  useful,  I think,  before  closing 
this  introductory  chapter  to  make  a still  more  brief 
comparison  between  Watts  and  another  painter  already 
mentioned  : William  Blake.  Both  of  them  sought, 
through  their  art,  to  interpret  the  deep  things  of  life  ; 
they  gave  form  to  thought  and  feeling.  There  was, 
however,  this  great  difference  between  them  : Blake 
saw  visions  ; they  came  before  him  unbidden  ; visions 
not  only  of  the  life  we  are  now  living,  and  of  the  world 
we  see  with  the  outward  sight,  but  of  the  life  beyond 
death,  and  of  the  world  that  is  hidden  from  mortal 
gaze.  Of  these  visions  many  of  Blake’s  pictures  and 
designs  were  a mere  record.  Like  Dante,  he  gave 
form  both  to  heaven  and  to  hell.  Watts  was  no  less 
earnest  than  Blake,  but  he  was  not  a visionary.  He 
gives  form  in  his  own  allegorical  and  symbolic  inven- 
tions almost  exclusively  to  that  which  comes  within  the 
range  of  common  human  experience. 

Other  than  this,  the  utmost  he  will  do  is  to  affirm 
that  beyond  the  darkness  of  death  there  is  light ; but 
Mystery  and  Silence  guard  the  portal  through  which 
men  will  pass  into  it.  He  was  too  intensely  conscious 
of  the  spirituality  of  the  present  life  to  use  his  imagina- 
tive gifts  in  picturing  a life  to  come.  The  field  of 
time  is  in  the  land  of  eternity;  our  immediate  work  is. 


INTRODUCTORY 


23 


or  may  be,  wholly  spiritual;  and  the  things  about  us 
are  all  aids  to  such  a life  if  only  we  know  how  to  use 
them.  To  miss  their  use,  and  idly  dream  of  life  and 
work  in  other  fields  beyond  our  sight,  is  by  no  means 
a sign  of  spirituality.  Excess  of  such  dreaming  was 
one  of  the  cardinal  errors  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Belief 
in  evolution  is  slowly  but  surely  correcting  it.  The 
work  immediately  to  hand  is  not  only  more  than  we 
manage  to  accomplish,  but  greater  than  we  can  conceive. 
‘We  are  but,’  said  Watts,  in  one  of  his  essays, ‘as  tools 
in  the  hands  of  the  unthinkable  Designer,  for  the  work- 
ing out  of,  to  us,  an  unseen,  great  purpose.  . . .We 
know  our  solar  system  is  impelled  onward  towards  some 
point  of  space.  Humanity  seems  to  be  subject  to  the 
same  law,  impelled  by  an  irresistible  impulse  onward.’ 
W atts  has  been  quoted  as  saying  that  ‘ as  long  as  hu- 
manity is  humanity  men  will  yearn  to  ascend  the  heights 
that  human  footsteps  may  not  tread,  and  long  to  lift  the 
veil  that  shrouds  the  enigma  of  being.’  He  himself, 
in  his  art  at  least,  held  such  yearning  and  longing  under 
severe  control,  and  found  and  proclaimed  eternity  in 
time,  and  the  spiritual  in  the  actual.  The  place  whereon 
we  stand  is  holy  ground. 

Watts  said  that,  if  he  could  have  done  so,  he  would 
have  expressed  himself  in  words  rather  than  in  painting. 
None  but  those  who  think  that  literature  is  the  only  art 


24  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

which  can  legitimately  be  used  to  convey  a meaning, 
will  regret  that  Watts  found  it  easier  to  paint  than  to 
write.  More  heed  is  given  in  these  days  to  speech 
and  writing  than  to  the  work  of  the  painter.  Probably 
it  always  was,  and  always  will  be  so.  Yet  we  need 
not  regret  that  one  of  the  most  earnest,  generous, 
sympathetic,  imaginative,  and  eloquent  men  of  his 
time,  found  that  it  was  in  painting  chiefly  that  he 
could  be  eloquent.  We  get  swifter  impressions  from 
paintings  than  from  books  and  poems,  a glance  is 
enough,  if  they  are  before  us  ; and  the  thought  that 
recalls  them  is  often  easier  than  that  which  calls  up 
words.  And,  despite  the  criticism  that  lays  down 
a hard-and-fast  rule,  not  based  on  the  history  of  art> 
and  ignoring  facts  at  every  turn,  to  the  effect  that  art 
should  only  be  concerned  with  beauty,  most  of  those 
who  read  these  pages  probably  will  not  think  that  art 
cannot  and  should  not  be  the  medium  for  a life- 
endeavour  to  suggest  great  thoughts,  and  to  quicken 
deep  and  pure  emotions. 


II 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 

The  biography  of  George  Frederick  Watts  is  little 
more  than  the  story  of  how  he  formed,  and  then, 
through  the  years  of  a long  life,  carried  out  the  purpose 
of  making  an  inborn  art-gift  of  the  utmost  value  to  his 
fellow-men.  A life  devoted  to  such  a task  cannot  be 
filled  with  stirring  incident ; or  if  there  were  such 
incident,  it  would  be  accidental,  not  an  outcome  of  the 
man’s  character  and  work.  Watts,  in  fact,  lived  from 
beginning  to  end  a retired  life,  almost  the  life  of 
a recluse ; not  that,  like  hermit  or  monk,  he  might 
forget  this  world  in  the  contemplation  of  a world  to 
come ; but  that,  by  reserving  his  time  and  strength  for 
his  work,  he  might  be  of  more  use  to  his  fellows. 

He  was  born  in  London  on  the  23rd  of  February, 
1817,  and  lived  until  the  ist  of  July,  1904.  Almost 
as  early  as  his  hand  could  hold  a pencil  he  began  to 
draw  and  to  paint ; and  he  only  laid  down  his  work 
when  he  laid  down  his  life.  During  the  intervening 


25 


26  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


years  how  many  things  happened  in  the  world  of  art ! 
When  his  friends  smiled  with  pleasure  at  his  earliest 
drawings,  Turner,  Constable,  John  Crome,  Lawrence, 
and  many  others  of  what  was  little  more  than  the 
second  generation  of  the  English  school  of  paint- 
ing, were  still  at  work.  He  was  already  a painter  of 
repute  when  Holman  Hunt,  Millais  and  Rossetti  began 
their  Pre-Raphaelite  crusade.  He  lived  to  see,  and 
to  form  his  own  estimate  of,  the  impressionism  of  our 
own  day.  But,  whatever  changes  might  take  place, 
he  only  narrowed  and  deepened  the  channel  he  had 
made  for  his  art  in  early  days. 

A few  years  before  his  birth,  his  father  had  migrated 
from  Herefordshire  to  London  ; and  the  family  is  said 
to  have  been  Welsh  in  origin.  It  can  neither  be 
proved  nor  disproved  that  he  became  the  artist  he  was 
because  of  the  Celtic  blood  in  his  veins.  It  is  not  to 
our  purpose  to  argue  the  point  here.  The  qualities, 
both  of  the  man  and  of  his  art  are  suggestive  of 
a mixed,  rather  than  of  a purely  Celtic,  descent. 
Though  imaginative,  he  was  yet  positive  in  mental 
temperament.  The  aim  of  many  of  his  subject- 
pictures  was  the  promotion  of  practical  reforms  ; he 
did  not,  as  already  noted,  see  visions  and  dream  dreams. 
He  was  intensely  methodical  in  work  and  tenacious  of 
purpose.  There  was  much  in  him,  therefore,  with 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


27 


which  the  average  Englishman  likes  to  credit  himself. 
Probably  he  was  not  more  given  to  melancholy  than 
was  Tennyson,  an  East- Anglian  both  by  birth  and 
descent,  whom  in  many  ways  he  closely  resembled, 
and  whose  influence  is  evident  in  much  of  his  work. 
We  even  find  him  reproving  Tennyson  for  despondency, 
and  telling  the  poet  that  he  would  not  have  let  King 
Arthur  ‘ talk  like  that.*  All  we  can  say  is  that  he 
ma'j  have  been  a Celt  by  ancestry  and  that  this  may 
account  in  part  for  what  he  was  and  did.  Ill-health, 
however,  almost  chronic,  was  an  indisputable  factor  in 
his  life  and  work,  and  may  have  accounted  for  some  of 
the  ‘ Celtic  * characteristics  often  attributed  to  him. 

As  to  neither  general  education  nor  art  did  Watts 
go  through  the  ordinary  routine.  He  was  a delicate 
child,  subject  to  prostrating  headaches  ; and  it  was 
with  the  help,  not  of  schoolmasters,  but  of  his  father, 
that  he  climbed  the  first  rounds  of  the  ladder  of  learn- 
ing. Here  we  inquire  solely  about  those  parts  of  his 
early  training  that  may  have  stimulated  his  imagination. 
The  Bible  figures  early  and  late  in  the  education  of 
Celt  and  Saxon  alike,  and  the  young  Watts  was  no 
exception  to  this  rule.  In  addition  to  the  Bible  we 
hear  of  Homer  and  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Readers  of 
Ruskin*s  Pra’terita  will  recollect  that  he,  born  only 
two  years  later  than  Watts,  places  the  Bible,  Homer 


28  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

and  Sir  Walter  Scott’s  novels  in  the  forefront  of  the 
literature  with  which  he  was  made  acquainted  in  early 
years.  From  the  Bible,  and  from  home-teaching 
based  on  the  Bible,  Watts,  like  Ruskin,  would  derive 
that  sense  of  life  and  its  powers  and  opportunities  as 
a trust  to  be  used  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the 
giver  of  life,  and  for  the  good  of  his  fellow-creatures, 
that  pervades  his  life  and  work.  If  this  be  conven- 
tional language,  the  justification  for  it  lies  in  the  fact 
that  Watts’s  life  was  in  this  sense  conventional,  as, 
also,  was  Ruskin’s.  By  his  own  confession  he  sought 
to  be  a worthy  modern  successor  of  the  man  whom 
our  English  Bible  calls  ‘ Ecclesiastes ; or.  The 
Preacher.’ 

It  is  clear  that  he  received  powerful  impressions 
from  the  drama  of  creation  and  the  early  history  oi 
mankind  as  set  forth  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  We 
cannot  doubt,  in  view  of  his  after-work,  that,  when  he 
first  read  that  story,  the  persons  in  it,  and  the  parts 
they  played,  rose  up  before  him  in  mental  picture  ; and 
that  then,  as  afterwards,  there  was,  for  him,  behind  the 
human  agents,  a supreme  actor,  not  to  be  portrayed. 
No  one  can  read  the  Old  Testament  without  realising 
the  linking  together  of  the  generations  of  men,  of 
which  the  Preacher  says  that  ‘one  generation  passeth 
away,  and  another  generation  cometh  : but  the  earth 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


29 

abideth  for  ever/  Such  a realisation  of  human  life 
we  have  seen  that  Watts  and  Turner  had  in  common 
though  the  former  gave  it  the  more  intimate,  the  more 
individual,  and  therefore  the  more  intense,  interpreta- 
tion. We  shall  more  fully  appreciate  Watts’s  indebted- 
ness to  the  Bible,  and  also  find  how  much  he  owed  to 
Homer,  when  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  his 
subject-pictures.  From  Sir  Walter  Scott  he  could  not 
but  gain  a view  of  life,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  words, 
romantic  and  chivalrous.  Illustrations  of  Scott’s  poems 
and  novels  are  the  earliest  of  his  essays  in  art  of  which 
there  is  record  ; and  it  seems  to  have  come  as  naturally 
to  him  to  express  himself  through  form  and  colour  as 
Pope  said  it  came  naturally  to  him  to  lisp  in  numbers. 

The  bent  of  the  boy’s  genius  and  inclination  seems 
to  have  been  too  obvious  for  there  to  have  been  at  any 
time  the  thought  of  training  him  for  a commercial  or  pro- 
fessional career.  We  miss,  in  this  case,  the  common 
story  of  opposition  between  sober  parental  plans  and 
youthful  enthusiasm.  But  though  it  was  early  settled, 
by  him  and  for  him,  that  he  was  to  be  an  artist,  his 
artistic  training  was  destined  to  be  as  unconventional  as 
had  been  his  general  education.  He  was  almost 
entirely  self-trained,  or,  to  put  it  more  correctly,  he 
chose  his  own  masters  and  learned  from  them  in  his 
own  way.  A very  few  weeks’  experience  in  the 


30  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

schools  of  the  Royal  Academy  seems  to  have  brought 
the  conviction  that  their  routine  could  be  of  little  use  to 
him.  But  Homer  had  made  him  familiar  with  the 
myths  and  legends  of  the  gods  and  heroes  of  Greece ; 
and,  in  the  British  Museum,  he  could  see,  in  the  figure- 
sculptures  of  the  Parthenon,  which  Lord  Elgin  had 
brought  to  this  country  in  1812,  how  Pheidias  and  his 
fellow-sculptors  had  given  noble  form  to  those  gods 
and  heroes,  and  also  how  they  had  represented  the 
actual  people  of  their  own  day  going  up  to  the  temple 
on  the  sacred  hill,  there  to  sacrifice  to  the  chief  pro- 
tectress-deity of  their  state  and  city.  The  Elgin 
marbles  were,  in  fact,  the  chief  teachers  of  his  student- 
days,  and  a comparison  of  the  noble  severity,  the 
impressive  dignity,  of  these  figure-sculptures  of  the  best 
period  of  Greek  art,  with  the  figures  of  Watts’s  own 
pictures  and  sculpture,  shows  that  they  were  to  him 
silent  instructors  from  whom  he  acquired  a sense  of 
style,  a sure  grasp  of  what  was  essential,  and  an 
unerring  rejection  of  all  that  was  not  material  to  the 
portrait,  subject-picture,  or  landscape  he  had  to  paint, 
or  the  figure  he  had  to  model.  Always,  like  a good 
story-teller.  Watts  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  aside 
by  nothing  that  was  irrelevant  to  his  theme. 

It  is  not  unimportant  to  bear  in  mind  with  reference 
to  the  influence  of  the  Elgin  marbles  on  the  art  of 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


31 


Watts,  that  not  a few  of  the  figures  are  headless,  and 
even  armless,  thus  leaving  for  study  such  expression 
only  as  can  be  conveyed  by  the  attitude  or  suggested 
movement  of  the  body  and  lower  limbs.  Such  expres- 
sion is  far  from  being  a negligible  quantity,  and  so  it  is 
with  Watts’s  figures;  they  are  alive  in  every  part  of 
them,  and  every  part  is  conceived  in  true  expressive 
relation  to  the  whole.  In  the  central  figure  of  Ariadne 
in  Naxos,  for  example,  the  listlessness  of  despair  is 
shown  in  the  droop  of  the  head  and  neck  on  the 
shoulders,  the  heavy  leaning  of  the  body  against  the 
attendant  maiden,  and  the  arms  and  legs  that  only  do 
not  sink  to  the  ground  because  of  support  they  find 
but  have  not  sought,  as  much  as  in  the  vacant,  woe- 
begone expression  of  the  face. 

When  to  the  silent  teaching  of  the  greatest  works 
of  Greek  sculpture  Watts  sought  to  add  that  of 
a living  master,  it  was  to  a sculptor  that  he  went.  It 
seems,  indeed,  that  in  those  days  he  rather  leaned  to- 
wards sculpture  than  towards  painting.  He  frequented 
the  studio  of  the  sculptor  William  Behnes,  watched 
him  at  work,  did  some  modelling  himself ; and  though 
he  was  destined  in  the  main  to  be  a painter,  he  did 
sufficient,  and  sufficiently  distinguished,  work  in  sculp- 
ture to  have  kept  his  name  alive  had  he  practised  no 
other  art.  His  physical  condition  was  such  that  model- 


32  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

ling  in  wet  clay,  nay,  even  a damp  atmosphere,  was 
sufficient  to  induce  rheumatism  ; and  it  may  be  that 
this  consideration  had  some  influence  in  determining 
him  to  pursue  painting  rather  than  sculpture  as  his 
chief  means  of  expression.  However  this  may  be, 
he  so  developed  his  skill  in  painting  that  a portrait  of 
himself,  executed  when  he  was  only  seventeen  years  of 
age,  surprises  both  by  its  realisation  of  character  and 
its  technical  qualities  ; and  he  was  no  more  than  twenty 
years  old,  as  a comparison  of  dates  will  show,  when 
two  portraits  and  a picture  by  him  were  hung  in  the 
Royal  Academy  Exhibition  of  1837.  The  picture 
was  The  Wounded  Heron.  Again  the  technical  skill  is 
remarkable  for  one  so  young.  The  stricken  bird, 
whose  outstretched  wings  can  no  longer  bear  it  aloft, 
falls  heavily  to  the  ground.  In  the  distance  a horseman 
is  seen  riding  up  to  secure  the  prey.  The  picture  has 
all  the  sense  of  space  so  necessary  to  its  subject. 

Portraits  and  subject-pictures  of  the  historical  and 
classical  kind  then  in  vogue  were  the  staple  of  his 
art  for  some  years  afterwards.  His  work  as  a 
portrait  painter  we  shall  consider  at  some  length  in 
a later  chapter.  We  need  say  no  more  here  than 
that,  in  these  early  days,  it  shows  the  influence  of 
Vandyck  and  Gainsborough,  and  in  some  respects  of 
Reynolds.  But  this,  in  the  case  of  a young  English 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


33 


painter  who  had  not  yet  been  abroad,  almost  goes  with- 
out saying.  His  figure-subjects  might  have  been 
chosen  by  any  other  painter  of  his  day  ; they  have  so 
far  no  more  individuality  than  if  they  had  been  drawn 
by  lot.  V ertumnus  and  Pomona^  GuideriuSy  Arviragus 
and  BelariuSy  and  Aurora — shades  of  the  historical 
painters  and  of  Etty  we  might  say,  and  quickly  pass 
along.  But  such  a picture  as  the  Aurora — we  shall  have 
to  refer  to  it  again — already  attests  a spirit  and  a 
technical  quality  that  hold  promise  of  great  things. 
We  might  be  accused  of  judging  after  the  event ; but 
we  can  point  to  the  fact  that  the  picture  was  at  once 
appreciated,  and  became  the  property  of  Mr.  lonides, 
of  whom  and  whose  family  Watts  painted  numerous 
portraits,  through  five  generations,  the  last  of  them. 
Miss  AgathoniJ^e  lonidesy  being  as  late  in  date  as  1893. 

Nor  was  the  ability  of  the  young  artist  to  receive 
the  recognition  of  private  patronage  alone.  The  new 
Houses  of  Parliament  having  been  completed,  a Royal 
Commission  was  appointed  to  prepare  a scheme  for 
their  decoration  with  historical  pictures.  A competi- 
tion was  decided  upon,  and  prizes  were  offered  for 
cartoons  for  mural  paintings.  In  July,  184.3,  a 
hundred  and  forty  designs  were  submitted  to  the  Com- 
missioners by  many  artists,  some  of  repute,  and  others 
with  their  reputation  still  to  make.  Among  the  latter 
n 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


34 

was  Watts  ; and  when  the  awards  were  published,  it 
was  found  that  his  design,  having  for  its  subject 
Caractacus  led  in  triumph  through  the  streets  of  Rome, 
had  gained  for  him  a first  prize  of  £,l,oo.  He  was 
at  this  time,  we  may  note,  twenty-six  years  of  age. 

Watts  was  not  asked  to  carry  out  his  design.  The 
Royal  Commission  was  neither  the  first  nor  the  last  to 
lead  to  little  practical  result.  The  Caractacus  was  sold 
to  a dealer,  who  dealt  with  it  as  a butcher  deals  with  a 
carcase  : cut  it  up,  sold  what  parts  of  it  were  saleable, 
and  made  away  with  the  remainder.  Some  fragments 
of  it  were  exhibited  in  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition 
of  Watts’s  work  in  1905.  Indirectly,  however,  it  had 
an  important  effect  upon  the  artist’s  career.  The 
prize-money  he  had  obtained  for  it  enabled  him  to 
visit  Italy.  To  the  study  of  the  masterpieces  of  Greek 
sculpture  he  was  now  to  add  the  study  of  the  master- 
pieces of  Italian  art.  Many  an  artist  has  gone  to  Italy 
only  to  lose  his  individuality  : to  become  a mere 
imitator  of  an  older  art  instead  of  an  interpreter  of  life 
and  nature.  It  was  not  to  be  so  with  Watts.  His 
individuality  was  too  distinct  to  be  merged  in  that  of 
any  master  or  masters,  however  great.  He  could 
learn  from  them,  but  in  a better  way  than  that  of  mere 
imitation. 

His  stay  in  Italy  was  intended  to  be  only  a brief 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


35 

one.  In  effect  it  lasted  four  years.  He  went  first  to 
Paris  ; remained  there  a few  weeks,  and  then  went 
direct  to  Florence.  He  had  a letter  of  introduction  to 
Lord  Holland,  at  that  time  British  Minister  at  the 
Court  of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  So  great 
was  Watts’s  diffidence  that  he  did  not  present  himself 
to  Lord  Holland  until  the  day  before  he  intended  to 
leave  Florence.  The  Minister  was  an  enlightened 
patron  of  art,  and,  recognising  the  young  painter’s 
merit,  persuaded  him  to  prolong  his  visit,  as  his  own 
guest ; and,  in  the  result,  the  stay  in  Italy  lasted,  as 
already  stated,  for  four  years  instead  of,  perhaps,  for  as 
many  months.  As  the  guest  of  Lord  Holland  he  met 
many  people  whose  acquaintance  or  friendship  meant 
much  for  him  in  after  years  in  England.  Not  only 
this  ; he  painted  numerous  portraits  while  in  Florence; 
and  at  Lord  Holland’s  country  house,  the  Villa 
Careggi,  he  executed  a fresco,  the  subject  of  which 
was  a tragic  incident  in  the  history  of  the  villa  : the 
physician  of  Lorenzo  dei  Medici,  suspected  of  poison- 
ing his  master,  being  thrown  down  a well  in  punishment 
for  his  alleged  crime.  It  was  at  this  villa  that  Lorenzo 
died,  so  suddenly,  as  to  give  rise  to  the  suspicion  of 
murder.  While  in  Italy  Watts  also  painted  several 
subject  pictures,  including  a small  Fata  Morgana, 

His  method  of  studying  the  works  of  the  Italian 


36  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

masters  was  not  to  make  elaborate  copies  of  them,  but 
to  live  with  them,  as  he  had  already  lived  with  the 
Elgin  marbles  : to  analyse  them  ; carefully  to  examine 
their  technique  ; and  to  make  such  studies  as  would 
help  him  the  better  both  to  catch  their  spirit  and  to 
understand  their  method.  In  his  estimate  of  Haydon’s 
art,  from  which  I have  already  quoted,  we  find  the 
following  echo  of  these  early  experiences  : ‘ The  Art 
of  Phidias  translated  and  expressed  perfection  of  form 
in  its  full  dignity  and  beauty ; that  of  Angelico, 
Perugino,  F rancia  and  Raffaele,  religion ; that  of 
Michel  Angelo  the  might  of  imagination  ; the  greater 
of  the  Venetians  were  the  exponents  of  the  power  of 
nature  in  its  rich  harmony  of  colour  ; Correggio  is  all 
sweetness  ; Tintoretto  is  the  Michel  Angelo  of  colour 
and  effect ; Rubens  is  profuse  and  generous  as 
autumn  ; and,  if  he  is  sometimes  slovenly,  he  is  so 
jovial  and  high-spirited  that  one  forgives  everything.^ 
These  are  not  merely  conclusions  at  which  Watts 
arrived  as  to  the  great  masters  of  art,  but  qualities  in 
their  work  which,  in  varying  degree,  he  felt  and 
assimilated.  He  had  lived  with  them,  and,  in  a 
measure,  he  felt,  saw  and  wrought  as  they  did,  yet 
remaining  always  himself.  So  Herr  Muther,  in  his 
History  of  Modern  Tainting^  referring  to  the  old 
painters,  says  that  W atts  ‘ is,  perhaps,  the  only  painter 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


37 

who  can  support  an  approach  to  them  in  every  respect. 
Here  is  a man  who  has  been  able  to  live  in  himself  far 
away  from  the  bustle  of  exhibitions,  a man  who  works 
now  that  he  is  old  as  soundly  and  freshly  as  when  he 
was  young,  a man,  also,  who  is  always  simple  in  his 
art,  lucid,  earnest,  grandiose,  impressive,  and  of  monu- 
mental sublimity.  Though  he  shows  no  trace  of  imita- 
tion he  might  have  come  straight  from  the  Renaissance, 
so  deep  is  his  sense  of  beauty,  so  direct  and  so  condensed 
is  his  power  of  giving  form  to  his  ideas.’ 

As  to  particular  influences,  we  shall  find  Watts 
adopting  a Raphaelesque  arrangement  for  his  great 
fresco  at  Lincoln’s  Inn.  Such  men  as  Masaccio  and 
Michel  Angelo,  however,  would  move  him  more  than 
Raphael.  The  set  of  his  genius  and  purpose,  like 
theirs,  was  intensely  dramatic  ; and,  to  effect  it,  he 
needed  to  add  force  and  movement  to  the  static  con- 
ceptions of  form  he  had  learned  from  the  Elgin 
marbles.  The  enormous  force  of  Tintoretto,  also,  did 
not  escape  him.  The  Venetians  drove  home  to  him, 
as  to  many  other  painters,  the  difference  between 
colour  and  colours^  which  may  be  compared  with  the 
difference  between  striking  all  the  notes  of  a chord 
together  and  in  succession.  Colour  does  not  merely 
enhance  colour  in  Venetian  painting,  but  each  seems 
to  merge  into  the  harmony  of  all.  In  Florentine 


38  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

painting  the  colours  lie  side  by  side,  and  we  enjoy 
difference  in  unity  rather  than  unity  in  difference. 
Watts’s  colour  was  Venetian  in  this  general  sense. 
It  had  often,  also,  the  Venetian  glow  and  splendour  ; 
but  it  had  also  qualities  of  northern  gloom  and  mystery, 
and  thus  had  a wider  emotional  range  than  that  of 
Venice. 

The  following  reminiscence  of  a work  of  Titian, 
which  appears  in  a pamphlet  written  years  after  the 
visit  to  Italy,  answering  the  question  ‘What  should  a 
Picture  say?’  is  instructive  in  view  of  the  great 
intensity  of  Watts’s  own  work  in  portraiture.  In 
the  course  of  a discussion  of  literal  and  suggestive 
truth  he  says  : ‘ In  Titian’s  great  portrait  of  a man, 
in  Florence,  there  is  the  sense  of  balance,  in  the 
highest  degree.  I cannot  describe  the  picture.  It  is 
a man  with  grey  eyes,  and  black  clothing,  with  ordinary 
features,  and  standing  straight  before  you.  But  I 
never  forgot  that  man.  You  don’t  think  of  the  shape 
of  his  nostril,  nor  the  light  and  shade  on  his  forehead. 
Points  in  his  nature  have  been  ignored.  Facts  in  his 
character  have  been  accentuated — the  whole  man  is 
there.  That  is  art.  The  artist  has  seen  and  painted 
a truth  other  than  material  truth.  In  the  case  of  Titian 
the  language  is  as  true  and  as  beautiful  as  the  idea. 
Sometimes  the  language  is  the  only  beauty,  and  in 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


39 

other  cases  the  idea  is  the  only  truth/  Such  study  of 
the  old  masters  as  is  exemplified  in  the  above  quotations 
was  far  from  being  calculated  to  stifle  individuality,  but 
would  rather  stimulate  and  uplift  it. 

We  can  find  evidence  again  of  the  result  of  his  stay 
in  Italyin  an  essay  written  by  him  in  the  summer  of  1 879, 
and  contributed  to  the  Nhieteenth  Century  of  February 
in  the  following  year.  He  asks  if  a great  school  of 
art  is  possible  at  the  present  day,  not  merely  a number 
of  individual  artists,  ‘ but  a school,  a group  of  painters, 
sculptors  and  architects,  whose  work  collectively 
would  have  a force  marking  the  age  in  which  they 
live,  becoming  part  of  the  history  of  the  country  to 
which  they  belong,  and  existing  in  the  future  as  a last- 
ing monument  of  the  best  feelings  and  thoughts  of  the 
present  time  ? Will  the  people,  say,  of  the  twenty- 
third  century  be  able  to  read  what  is  best  in  our 
English  history  of  the  nineteenth  century,  its  highest 
feeling,  its  purest  and  subtlest  thought,  by  the  light  of 
those  monuments  of  art  now  being  produced  or  capable 
of  being  produced,  as  we  read  the  history  of  Egypt, 
Greece  and  Italy  in  the  legacies  of  art  those  countries 
have  left  for  us  ? W atts  had  travelled  in  Greece  and 
Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  in  Italy,  when  he  wrote  this 
passage  ; but  we  may  be  sure  it  was  in  Italy  that  the 
right  of  art  to  the  large  place  in  life  that  he  here 


40 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


claims  for  it  was  first  impressed  upon  him.  For  there 
it  had  held  that  place  for  centuries,  during  the  period 
we  know  as  the  Renaissance.  ‘ Nothing  notable  was 
produced  in  Italy,’  says  John  Addington  Symonds, 
‘ between  the  thirteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  that 
did  not  bear  the  stamp  and  character  of  fine  art.  If 
the  methods  of  science  may  be  truly  said  to  regulate 
our  modes  of  thinking  at  the  present  time,  it  is  no  less 
true  that,  during  the  Renaissance,  art  exercised  a like 
controlling  influence.  Not  only  was  each  department 
of  the  fine  arts  practised  with  singular  success  ; not 
only  was  the  national  genius  to  a very  large  extent 
absorbed  in  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture  ; but 
the  aesthetic  impulse  was  more  subtly  and  widely 
diffused  than  this  alone  would  imply.  It  possessed  the 
Italians  in  the  very  centre  of  their  intellectual  vitality, 
imposing  its  conditions  on  all  the  manifestations  of  their 
thought  and  feeling.  So  that  even  their  shortcomings 
may  be  ascribed  in  a great  measure  to  their  inability 
to  quit  the  aesthetic  point  of  view.’  It  was  among 
the  works  of  art  of  a people  thus  endowed,  works 
of  architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  and  the  lesser 
arts,  in  cathedral,  church,  and  palace,  and  even,  we 
may  say,  in  street  and  market-place,  that  W atts  spent 
four  years  of  the  most  impressionable  time  of  his  life  ; 
when  he  had  already  achieved  some  success  in  art;  the 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


-fi 

very  means  that  had  enabled  him  to  visit  Italy  having 
been  earned  by  work  of  the  very  kind  in  which  Italian 
painters  had  greatly  excelled.  We  must  bear  in  mind 
also  that,  from  an  early  age,  Watts  had  felt  it  was  his 
duty  to  use  his  powers  for  the  good  of  his  fellows.  At 
the  age  of  fifteen  he  had  felt  self-condemned  because 
he  had  achieved  nothing.  Little  wonder,  then,  that  he 
returned  from  Italy  fired  with  the  hope  of  doing 
something  to  make  art  take  in  modern  England  a place 
at  least  not  very  far  below  that  which  it  had  held  in 
the  life  of  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance. 

During  his  stay  in  Italy  there  was  a second  competi- 
tion for  designs  for  the  decoration  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament.  In  this.  Watts  took  no  part.  A third 
competition  was  arranged  in  1846,  and,  on  Lord 
Holland’s  advice,  he  sent  in  a design  having  for  its 
subject.  King  Alfred  incithig  the  Saxons  to  prevent  the 
Landing  of  the  Danes.  Again  he  was  awarded  a first 
prize,  this  time  of  500.  As  before,  he  was  not 
called  upon  to  carry  out  his  design  ; but  he  was  com- 
missioned to  paint,  in  the  Upper  Waiting  Hall  of  the 
Flouse  of  Lords,  a fresco  of  St.  George  and  the 
Dragon,  which  still  exists,  though  in  a very  faded  con- 
dition. 

The  King  Alfred  cartoon  was  painted  m Florence. 
After  his  return  to  England  Watts  continued  to  paint 


42 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


portraits  and  subject-pictures  : the  main  lines  of  work 
he  had  followed  both  before  and  during  his  visit  to 
Italy.  Already  he  had  formed  the  purpose  of  painting 
for  gift  to  the  nation  a series  of  portraits  of  his  most 
distinguished  contemporaries  ; and  the  idea  of  a great 
series  of  historical  and  imaginative  pictures  was  taking 
shape  in  his  mind.  The  subject-pictures  of  1 848  and 
the  two  following  years,  Lifers  Illusions^  The  People  that 
sat  in  Darkness  have  seen  a great  Light — which  was  a 
design  for  a fresco — and  The  Good  Samaritan^  show 
him  already  engrossed  by  the  deeper  questions  of  life 
which  were  to  occupy  his  thought,  and  find  expression 
in  his  art,  to  the  end.  The  Good  Samaritan  was 
painted  as  a tribute  of  respect  to  Thomas  Wright,  a 
Manchester  philanthropist  who  devoted  himself  to 
prison  mission-work,  and  it  was  presented  by  the  artist 
to  the  city  of  Manchester,  where  it  now  has  a place 
of  honour  in  the  Municipal  Art  Gallery.  This  inci- 
dent is  significant  of  Watt’s  broad,  human  sympathy. 
To  this  period  also  belong  several  pictures  the  aim  of 
which  was  to  arouse  sympathy  with  the  poor  and  out- 
cast. They  are  as  uncompromisingly  realistic  as  Tom 
Hood’s  ‘ Song  of  the  Shirt  ’ and  ‘ The  Bridge  of 
Sighs.’  They  are  in  fact  a translation  of  these  poems 
into  painting.  Their  titles  : Found  Drowned^  The 
Se  ms  tress,  Under  a Dry  Archway,  and  Irish  Peasants 


I'HE  GOOD  SAMARITAN 


I 


1 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


43 


during  the  Famine  are  sufficient  almost  to  make  them 
visible  to  any  one  who  has  not  seen  them,  and  unmis- 
takably suggest  their  intention.  Watts  may  have 
lived  apart  from  the  multitude,  but  its  labour  and  its 
sorrows  were  never  far  from  his  thought  and  sympathy. 

These  were  the  years  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  move- 
ment. Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  Rossetti  were  ex- 
ploding their  artistic  bombs  in  the  hitherto  tranquil 
halls  of  Academic  art.  Their  revolutionary  principles 
had  been  formed  by  the  study  of  nature,  and  they  had 
been  inspired  by  the  Italian  painters  who  preceded 
Raphael.  While  they  were  fighting  for  bare  existence, 
W atts,  by  his  portrait  painting,  was  acquiring  sufficient 
money  to  make  it  easier  for  him  in  after  years  to  paint 
whom  he  liked  and  what  he  liked,  and  to  devote  his  art 
to  what  he  believed  to  be  the  highest  ends.  He  was 
influenced  but  little  by  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement. 
There  are  signs  of  increased  attention  to  detail  in  por- 
traits he  painted  while  the  champions  of  nature  were 
fighting  their  battle  and  Ruskin  was  cheering  them  on. 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  in  his  ‘ Pre-Raphaelitism  and  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,’  says  : ‘ In  respect  to  his 
fulness  of  rendering  of  the  human  form,  I was  fain  to 
regard  Watts  as  an  ideal  Pre-Raphaelite.’  The  wish, 
one  thinks,  in  mentally  comparing  the  work  of  the  two 
painters,  was  here  the  father  to  the  thought — or  at  least 


4+ 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


to  some  of  it,  if  the  parentage  may  be  thus  divided. 
Watts’s  attitude  towards  Pre-Raphaelitism  is  perhaps 
more  accurately  gauged  by  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  in  a 
passage  immediately  following  the  above  quotation  ; 
‘ He  soon  came  to  see  my  oft-retarded  picture.  I felt 
ashamed  of  its  smallness,  but  he  had  the  catholicity  of 
interest  for  other  work  than  his  own  that  all  true  artists 
retain.’  Ruskin,  who  is  said  to  have  spoken  of  Watts 
as  an  artist  ruined  by  studying  the  Greeks,  tried  to 
persuade  him,  if  not  to  abandon  Greek  sculpture,  at 
least  to  study  botany.  The  patient  never  had  the  pre- 
scription so  much  as  made  up.  In  Ruskin’s  ‘ Art  of 
England  ’ lecture  on  the  ‘ Mythic  Schools  of  Painting,’ 
with  Watts  and  Burne-Jones  as  the  painters  selected  for 
particular  reference,  little  is  said  about  W atts ; but  ‘ his 
constant  reference  to  the  highest  examples  of  Greek  art 
in  form  ’ is  mentioned  in  terms  of  praise. 

In  1857,  Ruskin  wrote  : ‘ We  have  as  far  as  I knozv^ 
at  present  among  us,  only  one  painter,  G.  F.  Watts, 
who  is  capable  of  design  in  colour  on  a large  scale. 
He  stands  alone  among  our  artists  of  the  old  school  in 
his  perception  of  the  value  of  breadth  in  distant  masses, 
and  in  the  vigour  of  invention  by  which  such  breadth 
must  be  sustained  ; and  his  power  of  expression  and 
depth  of  thought  are  not  less  remarkable  than  his  bold 
conception  of  colour  effect.’  In  speaking  of  Watts  as 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


45 

‘ an  artist  of  the  old  ’ school,  Ruskin  must  be  understood 
to  mean  that  he  had  not  adopted  the  principle  of  close 
fidelity  to  nature,  to  which,  of  the  three  leaders  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  was  the 
only  one  to  remain  faithful ; Rossetti  abandoning  it 
almost  before  he  had  adopted  it ; and  Millais  after  the 
lapse  of  only  a few  years.  Wattses  own  view  of  such 
matters  is  expressed  in  his  pamphlet,  ‘What  should  a 
Picture  say?’  in  which  he  maintains  that  ‘truths  are  of 
different  kinds.  Truth  in  painting  of  still  life  is  not  the 
same  thing  as  truth  in  an  ideal  picture.  The  latter  may 
represent  no  detail  perfectly,  and  yet  may  be  true  ; may 
convey  a greater  truth  than  that  picture  which  is  fault- 
less in  form,  and  accurate  as  science.’  The  weakness 
of  the  more  rigid  theory  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  that 
it  went  very  near,  if  not  all  the  way,  to  a confusion  of 
nature  with  art.  The  weakness  of  classical  art  is  that 
it  often  divorces  art  from  nature  and  life.  Watts  safely 
steered  a middle  course. 

In  1856  Watts  accompanied  Sir  Charles  Newton’s 
expedition  to  explore  the  site  of  the  tomb  of  Mausolus 
at  Halicarnassus,  and  the  chances  of  his  ever  abandon- 
ing Greek  sculpture  for  botany  were  much  diminished 
by  this  journey,  when  not  only  did  he  see  more 
examples  of  Greek  art,  but  he  saw  them  amid  their  own 
natural  surroundings,  in  the  lands  where  that  art  had  its 


46  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

birth  ; and  the  sea  and  rivers,  the  valleys,  hills  and 
groves  of  which,  and  the  sky  above  them,  had  been 
personified  in  the  Greek  mythology.  If  Watts  never 
forgot  Titian’s  portrait  of  a man  at  Florence,  his  art  in 
after  years  shows  that  he  never  forgot  the  beauty  of  the 
lands  of  ancient  Hellas,  that  its  mythology  became  to 
him  vividly  alive,  an  interpretation  of  life  and  nature 
with  which  he  felt  men  could  not  wholly  dispense, 
even  though  it  might  in  one  sense  be  ‘ a creed  outworn.’ 
We  shall  have  more  to  say  about  these  things,  and 
about  the  landscapes  he  painted  during  these  journeys, 
in  later  chapters. 

Some  time  previous  to  this  expedition  he  had  com- 
menced what  was  to  be  his  largest  work,  a fresco  in 
the  Hall  of  Lincoln’s  Inn,  representing  The  School  oj 
Legislature^  or  to  give  its  alternative  title.  Justice:  a 
Hemlcycle  of  Lazv-givers.  He  had  offered  to  execute 
the  work  at  his  own  cost,  and  the  Benchers  of  the  Inn 
had  accepted  the  offer.  The  fresco,  which  was  com- 
pleted in  1859,  occupies  the  north  wall  of  the  hall, 
and  is  forty-five  feet  long  and  forty  feet  high.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  though  the  hall  is  Gothic  in 
style,  the  fresco  is  Raphaelesque  in  character.  When 
Ford  Madox  Brown  returned  from  Italy,  eager  to 
emulate  the  Italian  painters  by  devoting  his  art  to  the 
celebration  of  the  history  and  poetry  of  his  own  land. 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


47 

he  placed  the  compositions  he  executed  with  this 
intent  within  painted  Gothic  arches,  and  the  work  all 
through  is  reminiscent  of  the  quattrocento.  Watts 
adopted  the  later  manner  even  at  the  cost  of  sonie 
incongruity  between  the  fresco  and  its  surroundings. 
It  contains  thirty-three  figures.  The  design  is 
crowned  by  three  figures  representing  Justice,  Truth, 
and  Mercy.  Immediately  beneath  them  stands  Moses, 
with  the  Tables  of  the  Law  ; then,  at  each  side  of 
him,  and  in  the  tiers  below,  are  such  legislators  and 
philosophers  as  Zoroaster,  Confucius,  Lycurgus,  Solon, 
Numa,  Charlemagne,  Alfred  the  Great,  and  Edward  I. 
The  individual  figures  are  both  expressive  and  dignified, 
worthy  to  represent  those  v/hose  names  stand  out  in 
history  and  legend.  There  is  also  much  skilful  group- 
ing ; while  the  draperies  are  interestingly  varied  and 
the  colour  is  harmonious. 

The  chief  defect  in  the  work  is  that  many  of  the 
figures  and  groups  have  the  appearance  of  having  been 
thought  out  separately,  without  being  afterwards  brought 
into  due  relation  with  the  others.  This  may  be  owing, 
in  part,  to  the  lack  of  dramatic  unity  in  the  subject 
itself.  All  these  people  of  various  ages,  countries  and 
costumes,  are  not  united  in  any  common  action  ; the 
bond  between  them  is  the  non-pictorial  one  that  they 
were  all  legislators.  They  have  rather  the  air  of 


48  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

waiting,  of  ‘hanging  about,’  until  some  ^action,  in 
which  they  are  all  to  take  part,  shall  begin.  The  de- 
fect may  also  be  due  to  the  lack  of  a national  tradition 
in  work  of  this  kind.  Watts  was  not  merely  adding 
another  to  a long  succession  of  mural  paintings,  done 
by  masters  from  one  or  more  of  whom  he  had  learned 
the  craft.  He  was  making  an  experiment;  attempting 
what,  for  his  own  country,  was  rather  an  importation 
than  a revival ; and  we  wonder  more  at  the  extent 
of  his  success  than  at  his  partial  failure.  Many  of  the' 
heads  were  portraits.  Tennyson  figures  as  Minos ; 
Holman  Hunt  as  Ina ; Lord  L.awrence  as  a Magna 
Charta  baron — an  admirable  part  for  him;  Sir  William 
Harcourt  is  Justinian  ; and  Lady  Lilford  changes  her 
sex  and  becomes  King  Alfred.  The  work  is  thus,  in 
many  ways,  one  of  very  great  interest ; and  it  is  satis- 
factory to  know  that  careful  measures  have  been  taken 
for  its  preservation.  Before  this,  however,  it  had 
suffered  considerably.  When  it  was  completed  the 
Benchers,  gratified  with  the  result,  generously  went 
beyond  the  letter  of  the  compact — gave  an  equitable 
decision,  we  may  say— -and  presented  Watts  with  a 
gold  cup  and  a purse  of  ^^oo. 

An  offer  to  execute  a larger  scheme  of  mural 
painting,  made  about  this  time,  was,  fortunately,  one 
may  think,  rejected.  Watts  proposed  to  the  Directors 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


49 

of  the  London  and  North  Western  Railway  Company 
that  he  should  be  allowed,  at  his  own  cost,  to  decorate 
the  large  waiting  hall  of  Euston  Station  with  a series 
of  mural  paintings  representing  The  Progress  of  Cosmos. 
The  choice  of  such  a building  for  such  a purpose  looks 
like  keen  satire  at  the  expense  of  Royal  Commissions 
and  other  authorities,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  having 
under  their  control’  buildings  really  suitable  for  the 
purpose,  and  making  no  offer  of  them.  Anyhow,  the 
railway  directors  were  not  willing  to  have  The  Progress 
of  Cosmos,  even  as  a gift ; and,  no  other  place  being 
forthcoming,  the  project  fell  through.  Watts,  how- 
ever, carried  out,  as  easel  pictures,  a number  of  the 
designs  which  would  have  formed  part  of  his  great 
scheme ; and  these  constitute,  as  we  shall  see  later,  an 
important  part  of  his  life-work.  He  did  execute  a 
few  other  mural  paintings  ; one,  representing  Briseis 
being  taken  from  Achilles,  is  at  Bowood,  the  Wiltshire 
seat  of  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne ; another,  in 
the  church  of  St.  James -the -Less,  near  Vauxhall 
Bridge,  has  been  replaced  by  a copy  in  mosaic  ; and 
the  Sl  Matthew  and  5/.  Mark,  in  two  of  the  spandrels' 
under  the  dome  of  St.  PauPs  Cathedral,  are  mosaic 
reproductions  of  his  designs.  The  large  painting, 
A Story  from  Boccaccio,  now  at  the  Tate  Gallery,  was 
also  designed  for  mural  decoration.  His  hope  of  doing 


E 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


50 

so  much  work  of  this  kind  as  to  make  an  important 
contribution  to  its  more  general  adoption  in  this  country 
was  not,  however,  to  be  realised. 

Lord  Holland’s  four  years’  hospitality  to  Watts  in 
Florence  shows  that  the  painter  had  personal  qualities 
that  attached  people  to  him,  and  made  it  a delight  to 
do  him  such  service  as  would  keep  him  with  them. 
This  was  evidenced,  soon  after  his  return  to  England, 
by  his  becoming,  and  remaining  for  many  years,  a guest 
in  the  family  of  Mr.  Thoby  Prinsep,  at  Little  Holland 
House,  Kensington.  Watts,  indeed,  needed  friends 
who  would  care  for  him  almost,  one  may  say,  as 
for  a child  ; his  devotion  to  his  art  being  so  intense 
that  other,  mundane  concerns,  the  necessary  foundations 
of  life  and  work,  were  apt  not  to  receive  due  attention. 
Millais  surprised  and  pained  him  on  one  occasion  by 
refusing  to  discuss  art  matters — to  ‘ talk  shop  ’ as  he 
put  it — out  of  studio  hours.  Mr.  Spielmann  quotes 
him  as  saying,  in  reply  to  the  question  why  he  worked 
so  hard,  that  he  had  nothing  else  to  do.  He  used  to 
begin  work  at  four  or  live  o’clock  in  the  morning,  and 
has  been  known  to  spend  sixteen  or  seventeen  hours  in 
the  studio  in  one  day.  To  a man  thus  wrapped  up  in 
his  work,  it  must  have  meant  much  to  have  friends 
willing  to  relieve  him  of  cares  that  count  for  much  in 
most  men’s  lives.  Only  by  abstinence  and  carefully 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


5* 

regulated  exercise  could  Watts  hope  to  escape  from 
frequent  illness  and  so  not  be  hindered  in  his  work. 
That  he  lived  so  long  and  accomplished  so  much  was 
due  to  his  own  self-discipline  and  to  the  constant  care 
and  watchfulness  of  those  around  him. 

To  his  intimate  friends  he  was  known  as  ‘Signor,’ 
a tribute  to  his  knowledge  of  Italy  and  things  Italian  ; 
and  the  portraits  of  him  in  early  middle  life,  when  his 
manner  was  generally  grave,  suggest  that  the  title  must 
have  seemed  a very  appropriate  one.  Not  that  he  was 
always  grave  in  hours  of  relaxation.  There  may  not 
have  been  much  of  the  laughter  that  is  like  the  crack- 
ling of  thorns  under  a pot ; but  we  find  it  on  record 
that  he  could,  even  at  a later  date,  tell  ridiculous 
stories,  would  even  condescend  to  play  on  words, 
and  that  among  his  favourite  songs  were  ‘Tom  Bowl- 
ing,’ ‘The  Vicar  of  Bray,’  and  ‘Sally  in  our  Alley.’ 
We  call  to  mind  that  another  grave  signor,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  used  to  sing  ‘ Camptown  Races  ’ and  other 
nigger  songs. 

In  1876,  when  Little  Holland  House  had  to  be 
pulled  down,  and  its  site  and  grounds  to  take  their  part 
in  finding  room  for  London’s  growth.  Watts  had 
another  house  built  for  him,  close  by,  in  the  newly 
made  Melbury  Road,  and  gave  to  it  the  old,  familiar 
name.  It  was  the  studio  of  this  Little  Holland 


52 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


House,  with  finished  and  partly  finished  works  by  the 
master  for  contents,  that  was  thrown  open  to  visitors 
on  Saturday  and  Sunday  afternoons. 

To  follow  Watts’s  work  year  by  year,  and  to 
enumerate  his  paintings  in  the  order  of  their  produc- 
tion, is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  little  book.  Quite 
early,  as  we  have  seen,  he  mapped  out  his  life-work  ; 
and  the  exact  date  at  v/hich  he  filled  in  this  or  that 
detail  of  his  scheme  is  not  material  to  an  adequate 
general  appreciation  of  it,  though  necessary  to  the 
close  student  of  his  technical  progress.  It  has  already 
been  said  that  his  art  covered  a wide  range  of  subject. 
Greek  mythology  retained  its  hold  upon  him  ; it  was 
not  to  him,  as  already  said,  merely  ‘ a creed  outworn  ’ ; 
and  many  of  his  pictures  are  Greek  in  form,  and 
largely  Greek  in  spirit.  We  shall  find  also  that  he 
interpreted  nature,  as  already  incidentally  mentioned  in 
comparing  his  work  with  that  of  Turner,  in  landscape 
paintings  of  markedly  individual  character.  Occasion- 
ally he  would  paint  a quite  simple  genre  picture,  such 
as  The  Rain  it  raineth  every  'Day.  The  poets — Dante, 
Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Tennyson — suggested  not  a few 
subjects  to  him  ; and  we  have  also  a number  of  idyllic 
fancies  of  his  own,  which  may,  perhaps,  have  had  a 
more  than  superficial  meaning.  Then  there  is  the  long 
series  of  pictures  that  treat  of  the  evolution  of  the 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


53 

world  and  of  man,  and  human  history,  and  the  powers 
of  good  and  evil,  and  love  and  life  and  death,  and 
religion,  in  the  broad  sense  alone  in  which  Watts 
would  interpret  it.  And,  lastly,  there  are  the  por- 
traits, and  chief  among  them,  thovsc  that  he  painted  to 
be  a record  of  the  best  and  wisest  of  his  own  time. 
Such  a life-work  as  this,  carried  through  with  steady 
persistence,  despite  physical  hindrances,  until  he  was 
eighty-seven  years  of  age,  with  powers  of  thought  and 
work  seemingly  little  impaired  until  the  end,  strikes  us 
with  admiration.  The  man  himself,  in  his  long  devo- 
tion to  a lofty  purpose,  rises  high  above  his  work  ; 
though  that  finds  nothing  to  compare  with  it,  in  amount 
and  range  and  quality,  in  its  own  kind  and  time. 

This  is  an  appropriate  place  for  what  it  seems 
desirable  to  say  formally  about  technical  matters  in 
a book  not  primarily  intended  for  the  art  student. 
This  will  be  but  little,  and  will  be  directed  to  points 
that  are  likely  to  interest  and  help  the  general  reader. 
Watts  disapproved  of  laborious  drawing  from  the 
living  model.  He  himself,  in  his  early  days,  used  to 
watch  acrobatic  performances  in  order  to  study  the 
human  body  in  action  ; and  he  also  made  rapid  studies 
from  life.  In  his  own  work  he  was  much  less  depen- 
dent on  the  model  than  are  most  painters,  calling  in  its 
aid,  not  so  much  for  the  figure  and  its  action  as  a 


54  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

whole,  as  for  points  of  detail  in  which  he  found  him- 
self at  fault.  He  thought  that  too  close  dependence 
on  the  model  interfered  with  the  full  expression  of  the 
ideas  to  which  he  wished  to  give  form.  Not  dis- 
similar in  principle  was  his  objection  to  close,  realistic 
imitation  of  life  and  nature  in  imaginative  works.  He 
thought  that  exact  rather  than  suggestive  representation 
distracted  attention  from  the  idea  of  the  picture.  At 
the  same  time,  his  canvases  are  never  bald  and  uninter- 
esting. There  is  as  much  detail  as  we  should  be 
conscious  of,  if  we  were  actually  before  the  scene 
represented,  and  engrossed  in  its  central  interest.  For 
a similar  reason  he  discarded  obvious  dexterities  of 
craftsmanship  ; he  wished  the  painter  to  be  forgotten 
in  the  painting,  and  the  painting  in  the  subject.  He 
used  to  paint  on  a light  ground  so  that,  when  the 
under-painting  began  to  show  through  with  lapse  of 
time,  his  pictures  would  gain  in  brilliancy.  He  dis- 
liked an  ‘ oily,  painty  ’ surface,  which  he  thought  to  be 
incompatible  with  suggestion  of  atmospheric  vibration. 
Hence  he  used  to  dry  out  much  of  the  oil  from  his 
pigments,  and  the  result  was  a slightly  rough  surface, 
allowing  so  much  variety  of  reflection,  that,  to  the 
eye,  it  almost  ceased  to  be  a surface,  and  the  figures 
and  objects  in  the  picture  seemed  to  be  in  a world  of 
their  own,  and  not  merely  on  a canvas  stretched  within 


PHYSICAL  ENERGY 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


55 


the  four  angles  of  a frame.  As  another  result  there 
was  vibration,  not  only  in  the  suggested  atmosphere, 
but  also  in  the  actual  colour.  His  methods  helped  to 
give  to  his  pictures,  not  only  a sense  of  life,  but  also  a 
concentration  that  greatly  increases  their  impressive- 
ness. More  than  this  about  technical  matters  would  be 
beyond  our  scope. 

Watts’s  painting  so  much  outweighs  his  sculpture,  in 
amount,  and  therefore  also  in  importance  as  a medium 
of  self-expression,  that  the  latter  demands  no  more 
than  a paragraph  here.  The  sense  of  form  is  obvious 
in  his  paintings.  The  influence  of  the  Elgin  marbles 
is  to  be  seen  in  many  if  not  most  of  them  ; though  the 
treatment  is  always  pictorial,  never  sculpturesque.  The 
same  sense  of  form,  and  a sense  of  style,  together  with 
power  to  represent  vigorous  action  when  needed,  are 
evident  in  his  sculpture ; and,  as  in  his  painting,  though 
he  learned  much  from  the  great  masters  of  the  art,  from 
the  Italians  as  well  as  from  the  Greeks,  he  still  retained 
his  own  individuality.  A head  of  Medusa^  a bust  of 
Clytie — poor,  love-lorn  Clytie,  almost  torturing  herself 
as  she  turns  her  head  to  gaze  on  Apollo,  journeying 
through  the  heavens — an  equestrian  statue  of  Hugh 
Lupus,  at  Eaton  Hall,  and  the  magnificent  Physical 
Energy^  of  which  the  youthful  rider  on  the  powerful 
steed,  shading  his  eyes  so  that  he  may  see  what  lies 


56  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

before  him,  may  be  compared  with  the  rider  in  the 
picture  Progress — these  are  the  best  known,  and  the 
most  notable  of  Watts’s  works  in  sculpture.  Monu- 
ments to  the  Marquess  of  Lothian,  in  Blickling 
Church,  to  Bishop  IvOnsdale,  in  Lichfield  Cathedral, 
and  to  Tennyson,  outside  Lincoln  Cathedral,  should  also 
be  mentioned.  When  Watts  decided  to  give  most  of 
his  time  and  energy  to  painting,  he  was  probably  deny- 
ing himself  a foremost  place  among  modern  sculptors. 

We  now  pass  to  what  remains  to  be  recorded  in  the 
way  of  biographical  detail.  In  1886,  Watts  married 
Miss  Mary  Fraser-Tytler,  and  to  her  unceasing  care 
and  devotion  it  was  largely  due  that  for  another  eigh- 
teen years  he  was  able  steadily  to  pursue  the  practice 
of  his  art.  Immediately  after  their  marriage  Watts 
and  his  wife  started  for  Eg)'^pt,  whither  he  had  long 
wished  to  go  ; the  immediate  occasion  of  the  journey 
being  the  prospect  of  the  dry  climate  benefiting  his 
health.  ^The  return  journey  was  made  by  way  of 
Constantinople.  Greece  and  Naples,  the  Riviera  and 
Switzerland  were  visited  the  following  year,  and  some 
of  his  finest  landscape  painting  was  done  at  this  time. 
Scotland,  his  wife’s  home,  also  contributed  to  this  part 
of  his  work. 

Although  Watts  was  so  deeply  engrossed  in  his 
work  as  an  artist,  he  took  a keen  interest  in  con- 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


57 


temporary  life  and  affairs.  Many  of  his  pictures  show 
how  deeply  he  was  moved  by  the  social  and  economic 
problems  of  the  day,  most  of  which,  indeed,  have  been 
problems  throughout  history.  The  little  churchyard 
of  St.  Botolph’s,  now  used  as  an  open  space,  behind 
the  London  General  Post  Office,  bears  witness  to  his 
admiration  for  heroism  however  displayed.  A few 
small  slabs  in  a wall,  under  a lean-to  shelter,  bear 
inscriptions  recording  the  risk  or  loss  of  life  incurred  in 
the  endeavour  to  save  life.  It  was  Watts’s  hope  that 
this  kind  of  memorial  would  be  adopted  in  the  cities 
and  towns  throughout  the  country.  He  also  watched 
the  course  of  public  affairs,  as  is  evidenced  by  an 
article,  entitled  ‘ Our  Race  as  Pioneers,’  contributed  to 
the  'Nineteenth  Century  in  May,  1901.  He  contends 
in  this  article  that  the  British  race  is  marked  out  by 
Providence  for  a great  pioneer-work  in  the  spread  of 
civilisation,  and  that  it  would  be  well  if  other  nations 
recognised  this  and  made  no  attempt  to  interfere  with 
British  expansion.  Here  we  have  an  explanation  of 
his  gift  of  the  statue  Physical  Energy  to  stand  on 
the  Matoppo  Hills,  near  the  grave  of  Cecil  Rhodes. 
The  argument  in  the  article  goes  dangerously  near  to 
the  justification  of  the  means  by  the  end.  A safer,  if 
less  imposing  interest,  was  the  Home  Arts  and  In- 
dustries Association,  to  which  both  V/atts  and  his  wife 


58  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

rendered  much  assistance.  A pottery  was  established 
at  Limnerslease,  his  country-house  near  Guildford, 
during  his  lifetime  and  is  still  carried  on  under  the 
superintendence  of  Mrs.  Watts.  All  these  activities 
and  interests  are  side-lights  upon  the  main  work  of  his 
life,  which,  though  we  must  finally  judge  it,  in  and  for 
itself,  cannot  but  more  fully  command  our  respect 
when  we  find  from  other  sources  how  deeply  earnest 
its  author  was  in  the  whole  of  his  life  and  activity. 
Dante  Rossetti,  in  his  poem  Soothsay,  bids  men  beware 
lest  their  work  should  be  greater  than  themselves,  and 
rise  up  to  condemn  them.  The  man, Watts,  as  already 
said,  rises  in  every  way  above  his  work.  That  he  was 
the  last  to  see  merit  in  what  he  himself  was  and  did 
only  sets  the  seal  to  his  worth. 

The  worth,  both  of  the  man  and  the  artist,  was  fully 
recognised  by  others.  That,  without  having  sought 
the  distinction,  he  was  elected  first  an  Associate,  and 
then  a Member,  of  the  Royal  Academy,  in  1867, 
should  be  recorded  here,  even  though  it  was  an  event 
of  at  least  as  much  importance  to  the  Academy  as  to 
Watts.  In  his  early  days  he  had  found  the  Academy 
Schools  of  no  use  to  him.  Of  its  annual  exhibitions  of 
works  by  living  artists  he  said  : ‘An  Academy  Exhi- 
bition room  is  no  place  for  a grave  deliberate  work  of 
art.  It  is  seen  to  no  advantage  there,  being  out  of 


CHIEFLY  BIOGRAPHICAL 


59 

place’;  and  he  also  said  : ‘Modern  public  exhibitions 
are  most  unfavourable,  it  may  be  said  disastrous,  to  the 
best  interests  of  art — good  perhaps  for  industry,  but 
injurious  to  art  as  art.’  Watts  certainly  preferred  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  and  afterwards  the  New  Gallery, 
to  the  Academy  Exhibitions.  All  things  considered, 
the  Academy  was  fortunate  to  be  able  to  count  him  as 
one  of  its  members.  The  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  and  many  foreign  academies,  conferred 
honorary  distinctions  upon  him.  His  portrait,  painted 
by  himself,  finds  a place,  by  invitation,  in  the  Uffizi 
Galleries  at  Florence.  He  twice  declined  a baronetcy, 
but,  in  1902,  the  King  conferred  upon  him  the  newly- 
instituted  Order  of  Merit. 

The  later  years  of  his  life  were  passed  partly  at 
Little  Holland  House  and  partly  at  Limnerslease.  He 
continued  to  work  almost  to  the  end,  which  came,  after 
a brief  illness,  on  the  ist  of  July,  1904. 


Ill 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 

It  was  the  writer’s  good  fortune,  while  preparing  hand- 
books of  the  Watts  Exhibitions  at  Manchester  and 
Edinburgh  in  1905,  to  spend  many  hours  alone  with 
the  representative  collections  of  the  master’s  works 
then  brought  together  ; and,  the  outer  world  being  for 
the  time  banished  from  sight  and  mind,  what  he  saw 
in  the  pictures  seemed  to  become  real,  and  he  felt  to 
have  been  privileged  to  mingle  with  a company  of 
people  of  great  distinction,  with  whom  were  a number 
of  very  delightful  children  and  young  people — enjoying 
themselves  very  much  without  being  noisy — all  living 
in  a very  beautiful  world,  and  the  older  people  holding 
converse  about  things  of  deepest  import  to  humanity. 

It  is  perhaps  presumptuous,  having  had  this  privilege, 
to  attempt  to  tell  others  what  one  saw  and  ‘heard.’ 
Many,  also,  of  those  into  whose  hands  this  book  will 
come,  will  have  themselves  seen  Watts’s  work  almost 
in  its  entirety.  Still,  they  may  not  be  sorry  to  compare 
what  it  has  meant  to  them  with  what  it  has  meant  even 


60 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


6 


to  one  who  may  well  have  no  better  right  to  talk  about 
it  than  themselves.  And  if  this  book  should  be  read 
by  any  one  who  has  hitherto  seen  little  of  Wattses  work, 
it  may  perchance  send  such  an  one  to  the  Tate  Gallery, 
to  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  on  a delightful  pil- 
grimage to  Limnerslease,  and  to  any  of  the  provincial 
galleries  where  a picture  or  pictures  by  Watts  may  be 
found.  F or  his  pictured  world  and  thoughts  and  people 
are  well  worth  the  knowing. 

AVhere  shall  we  commence,  now,  to  talk  for  a while 
about  them  ? We  will  take  the  world  and  the  thoughts 
first  and  the  people  afterwards.  One  hesitates  before 
deciding  where  to  make  a beginning  and  how  to  group 
pictures  that  cannot  always  be  arranged  according  to 
strictly  exclusive  categories.  Still  there  is  no  need  for 
overmuch  hesitation.  This  is  not  a treatise;  and  Watts 
was  not  a systematic  philosopher.  Fie  was  an  artist 
and  a poet.  But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  did  not 
work*  wildly,  ‘ without  a conscience  or  an  aim.’  He 
himself  lived,  thought  and  felt  nobly  ; and  the  aim  that 
binds  his  work  into  a whole  is  that  of  reporting  to 
others  what  he  holds  to  be  essential,  to  be  elemental,  in 
nature  and  in  human  life. 

As  we  already  know,  he  early  became  acquainted 
with  both  Homer  and  the  Bible,  and  his  interpretation 
of  nature  and  life  is  largely  a product  * of  his  early 


62  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

reading.  He  thought  and  felt  about  nature  both  as 
the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew  thought  and  felt ; and  in 
this  is  the  clue  to  the  understanding  of  many  of  his 
pictures.  The  Greeks  saw  gods  everywhere ; the 
Hebrew  saw  God  everywhere.  The  Greek  pantheon 
culminated  in  Zeus;  and  above  Zeus  there  was  Fate. 
Below  him  were  lesser  deities,  controlling  human  life 
and  affairs,  and  air  and  earth  and  sea,  and  ‘ all  that  in 
them  is,’  and  these  had  their  attendant  spirits,  the 
nymphs.  To  the  Hebrew  there  was  one  God  ; he 
had  angels,  messengers,  to  do  his  bidding.  The 
powers  of  nature  were  tools  or  weapons  in  his  hand, 
as  in  the  thunder-storm  described  by  Habbakuk  : ‘ God 
came  from  Teman,  and  the  Holy  One  from  mount 
Paran.  His  glory  covereth  the  heavens,  and  the  earth 
was  full  of  his  praise.  And  his  brightness  was  as  the 
light ; he  had  horns  coming  out  of  his  hand  : and  there 
was  the  hiding  of  his  power.  Before  him  went  the 
pestilence,  and  burning  coals  went  forth  at  his  feet. 
He  stood,  and  measured  the  earth  : he  beheld,  and 
drove  asunder  the  nations  ; and  the  everlasting  moun- 
tains were  scattered,  the  perpetual  hills  did  bow  : his 
ways  are  everlasting.  . . . The  mountains  saw  thee, 
and  they  trembled  : the  overflowing  of  the  water 
])assed  by  : the  deep  uttered  his  voice,  and  lifted  up  his 
hands  on  high.  The  sun  and  moon  stood  still  in  their 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  63 

habitation  : at  the  light  of  thine  arrows  they  went,  and  at 
the  shining  of  thy  glittering  spear.’  Some  of  Watts’s 
‘ Hebraic  ’ pictures  come  up  before  us  as  we  read  this 
description  of  God  going  forth,  splendid  and  terrible. 

There  is  a third  view  of  life  and  nature,  chiefly 
modern  : the  one  that  banishes  gods  and  God  alike, 
and  replaces  them  with  matter  and  motion.  We  need 
say  no  more  than  that  this  last  interpretation  was 
impossible  to  Watts. 

But  why  the  Greek  interpretation  : ‘ a creed  out- 
worn ’ ? Because  there  was  something  lacking  in  that 
of  the  Hebrew.  Matthew  Arnold  says  that  ‘ the 
governing  idea  of  Hellenism  is  spontaneity  of  conscious- 
ness ; that  of  Hebraism,  strictness  of  conscience^ 
Hebraism,  in  some  at  least  of  its  modern  develop- 
ments, undervalues  the  beauty  of  nature,  as  gradually 
man  has  learned  to  see  it : beauty  of  light  and  colour 
and  form  in  infinite  degree  and  variety.  It  also  under- 
values joyousness  : the  mere  pleasure  of  being  alive 
with  others  in  a beautiful  world.  To  quote  Matthew 
Arnold  again  : ‘ At  the  bottom  of  both  the  Greek  and 
the  Hebrew  notion  is  the  desire,  native  in  man,  for 
reason  and  the  will  of  God,  the  feeling  after  the  uni- 
versal order, — in  a word,  the  love  of  God.  But,  while 
Hebraism  seizes  upon  certain  plain  capital  intimations 
of  the  universal  order,  and  rivets  itself,  one  may  say. 


6|  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

with  unequalled  grandeur  of  earnestness  and  intensity 
on  the  study  and  observance  of  them,  the  bent  of 
Hellenism  is  to  follow,  with  flexible  activity,  the 
whole  play  of  the  universal  order,  to  be  apprehensive 
of  missing  any  part  of  it,  of  sacrificing  one  part  to 
another,  to  slip  away  from  resting  in  this  or  that 
intimation  of  it,  however  capital/ 

This  criticism  goes  beyond,  but  includes,  what  we 
are  considering  here.  It  makes  clear  the  reason  why 
poet,  painter  and  sculptor  have  turned  again  and  again 
to  the  poetry  and  art  of  Greece  for  delight  and  in- 
spiration. Science  only  would  chill  them  to  the  bone. 
The  Hebrew  literature  leaves  much  of  life  and  nature 
unexplored  ; and  until  we  arrive  at  something  that  will 
replace  both,  we  need  to  see  things  from  the  Greek  as 
well  as  from  the  Hebrew  point  of  view.  Wordsworth 
felt  this;  and  Watts’s  picture  The  Spirit  of  Greek 
Poetry,  in  which  we  see  a figure,  personifying  that 
spirit,  gazing  on  other  figures,  floating  through  the  air, 
and  personifying  the  various  natural  powers  and  forms 
of  life,  was  suggested  to  him  by  the  sonnet  in  which 
Wordsworth  laments  that  the  world  is  too  much  with 
us,  that  we  do  not  feel  nature  akin  to  us,  and  cries  out 
for  a vision  of  the  gods  of  old ; so  that  he  may  even 

Catch  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea 

Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


65 

Watts  felt  as  Mrs.  Browning  felt  when  she  wrote 

A tree’s  mere  firewood,  unless  humanised, — 

Which  well  the  Greeks  knew  when  they  stirred  its  bark 
With  close-pressed  bosoms  of  subsiding  nymphs. 

And  made  the  forest-rivers  garrulous 
With  babble  of  gods. 

It  has  often  been  observed  that  Watts  painted  no 
portrait  of  a man  of  science,  using  the  term  in  the 
sense  of  a man  who  seeks  to  interpret  all  things  in 
terms  of  matter  and  motion.  Such  interpretation  has 
its  place  and  value  : and  men  of  poetic  temperament 
may  easily  undervalue  it.  On  the  other  hand  it  may 
be  pressed  too  far.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  recently 
uttered  the  warning  ‘that  science  is  one  thing,  and 
philosophy  another  : that  science  most  properly  con- 
cerns itself  with  matter  and  motion,  and  reduces 
phenomena,  as  far  as  it  can,  to  mechanism.  The  more 
successfully  it  does  that,  the  more  it  fulfils  its  end  and 
aim  ; but  when,  on  the  strength  of  that  achievement, 
it  seeks  to  blossom  into  a philosophy,  when  it  en- 
deavours to  conclude  that  its  scope  is  complete  and 
all-inclusive,  that  nothing  exists  in  the  universe  but 
mechanism,  and  that  the  aspect  of  things  from  a scientific 
point  of  view  is  their  only  aspect, — then  it  is  becoming 
narrow  and  bigoted  and  deserving  of  rebuke.’  Carlyle 
stigmatised  such  a philosophy  as  ‘ a gospel  of  dirt.’ 

F 


66  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


Ruskin  contemptuously  put  it  aside.  Tennyson  seemed 
at  times  almost  overwhelmed  by  it,  and  cried  out  in 
agony.  Watts’s  answer  to  it  v/as  the  humanising  of 
everything  in  the  heavens  above  and  in  the  earth 
beneath.  He  paints  three  figures,  floating  in  the  air, 
and,  both  by  their  nearness  to  each  other,  and  by 
a suggestion  of  related  movement,  as  well  as  by  the 
light  and  shade  upon  them,  appearing  to  be  united  by 
some  invisible  bond.  These  figures,  so  the  title  of 
the  picture  tells  us,  represent  the  Sun,  the  Earth,  and 
Earth’s  dead  daughter,  the  Moon.  The  arms  of 
the  Sun  are  outstretched  in  the  attitude  of  drawing 
a bow.  He  is  ruddy  in  hue.  Earth  is  less  so.  The 
Moon  is  pallid,  and  lies,  a limp,  inanimate  form  across 
her  mother’s  knee.  This,  to  Watts,  is  truth  if  not 
reality. 

He  has  himself  made  this  distinction  in  the  pamphlet, 
Wkat  should  a Picture  say  ? ‘ It  is  difficult,’  he  says, 
‘ to  explain  in  easy  terms  the  difference  between  truth 
and  reality.  It  might  be  said  that  there  is  a truth  that 
has  to  do  with  material  things,  and  a truth  that  relates 
to  ideas  and  noble  thoughts.  The  Psalmist  speaks 
truth  when  he  says  “the  little  hills  clapped  their  hands” 
or  “ the  morning  star  sang.”  The  hills  have  not  hands, 
nor  the  stars  throats,  but  the  Psalmist  has  forcibly  con- 
veyed the  thought  that  Nature  rejoices  and  has  delight’. 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  67 

The  union  of  the  members  of  a planetary  system  by 
physical  attraction  is  the  reality,  according  to  science  ; 
the  truth,  according  to  Watts,  is  more  adequately 
expressed  by  three  human  figures  in  related  movement. 
It  is  his  way  of  asserting  that  the  universe  can  only 
be  adequately  interpreted  in  terms,  not  of  mere  matter 
and  motion,  but  of  emotion,  will  and  intelligence.  It 
is  his  affirmation  that  the  universe,  of  which  man  is  a 
part,  is,  as  a whole,  not  less  than  the  part.  It  is  more 
than  this  ; for  these  symbolical  figures  in  Watts’s  paint- 
ings, though  human  in  form,  have  a dignity  that  shows 
the  artist  to  intend  a nature  higher  than  the  human. 
The  Assyrian,  imagining  the  perfect  being,  united  the 
intelligence  of  the  man  with  the  strength  of  the  beast 
and  the  flight  of  the  bird.  The  Greek,  to  the  same 
end,  wrought  human  figures  of  surpassing  beauty  and 
dignity;  and  Watts,  as  we  have  already  learned,  used 
the  language  of  Greek  art. 

He  used  it,  but  he  also  modified  it,  adapting  it  to  the 
needs  of  his  own  time.  There  is  no  such  figure  in 
Greek  art  as  the  Love  of  Watts’s  Love  and  Life.  He 
uses  also  another  language  than  that  of  Greece,  as  in 
the  pictures  Prayer  and  The  Dweller  in  the  Innermost, 
which  assert  a deeper  union  of  the  human  with  the 
universal  spirit  than  was  ever  conceived  by  the  religion 
that  Greek  art  sought  to  embody. 


68  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


One  has  heard  it  said,  and  said  by  a teacher  of 
religion,  that  Wattses  pictures  give  no  evidence  of 
belief  in  a personal  God.  W e will  not  pause  to  discuss 
so  strange  a statement.  The  words  must  surely  have 
been  used  in  some  narrowly  restricted  sense.  One  is 
inclined  to  accuse  him  who  used  them  of  the  pro- 
verbial inability  to  see  wood  for  trees.  As  clearly  as 
he  could.  Watts  asked  men  to  see  nothing  anywhere 
but  personality.  He  personified  Love  and  Life,  and 
Time  and  Death  and  Judgment ; and,  as  his  final  inter- 
pretation of  existence,  he  showed  Love  arising  triumph- 
ant above  Time,  Death,  and  Judgment  that  were  no 
more.  This  at  least  is  sure,  that  any  one  who  has 
understood  Watts’s  pictures,  and  become  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  what  he  sought  to  express  by  them,  can 
never  feel  himself  and  his  fellows  to  be  but  temporary 
sojourners  in  a universe  that,  in  more  or  fewer  years, 
will  know  them  not  and  miss  them  not ; but  will 
believe  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt  or  denial,  that 
personality  is  the  ultimate  and  enduring  fact. 

We  are  ready  now  to  look  at  those  of  Watts’s 
pictures  that  reveal  the  need  he  felt  of  the  Greek  inter- 
pretation of  nature  and  life  as  a complement  to  that  of 
the  Hebrew.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  of  them  is 
The  Childhood  of  Zeus.  The  gods,  men  thought, 
entered  life  like  human  beings,  and  grew  through 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  ZEUS 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  69 

infancy  and  childhood  to  maturity ; only  they  were 
immortal.  Zeus,  after  his  birth,  was  hidden  from  his 
father  Cronos,  who  swallowed  all  his  children,  and  to 
whom  was  given  to  eat,  instead  of  Zeus,  a stone  wrapped 
in  a cloth.  Zeus  was  nursed  in  Crete  by  Amalthea ; 
and  the  Curetes  guarded  him,  clashing  their  cymbals, 
so  that  Cronos  should  not  hear  his  cries  and  discover 
his  whereabouts.  Thus,  hidden  away  from  Time,  Zeus 
could  be  immortal.  The  story  has  to  the  full  what 
Matthew  Arnold  calls  the  freshness  of  the  early  world ; 
and  Watts’s  picture  has  fully  caught  its  spirit.  Under 
a tree-crowned  bank,  the  child — so  beautiful  that  we 
can  well  believe  him  to  be  a god — is  clasped  in  the 
embrace  of  a nymph ; and  she  and  other  nymphs,  except 
one  who  is  asleep,  are  looking  at  him  with  wonder  and 
delight.  On  the  ground  lies  fruit,  and  just  outside  the 
group  is  a goat  with  whose  milk  Amalthea  fed  the 
child.  His  beauty,  and  that  of  the  nymphs,  the 
graceful  attitudes  of  their  unclothed  forms  and  the  love- 
liness of  their  surroundings,  all  combine  to  make  an 
idyllic  scene  from  which,  even  though  it  be  but  a 
picture,  one  finds  it  hard  to  turn  away. 

In  another  picture,  called  simply  e/  a 

merry  company,  some  old,  some  young,  are  disport- 
ing themselves  in  the  sea,  close  by  the  shore  ; and  one 
youngster,  whom  Watts  painted  separately  as  Vm 


70  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

Afloat^  balances  himself  upon  the  waves,  apparently  in 
fearful  doubt  as  to  his  buoyancy  and  the  stability  of  his 
equilibrium.  A beautiful,  or,  rather,  a handsome  child 
was  painted  by  Watts  as  Ganymede,  whose  beauty  so 
charmed  the  gods  that  he  was  carried  up  to  Olympus 
to  be  the  cup-bearer  of  Zeus.  He  is  so  like  the  Zeus 
in  the  picture  already  described,  that  one  suspects  the 
same  child  of  having  been  made  to  play  both  parts.  He 
certainly  does  equally  well,  if  this  be  so,  for  the  child- 
hood of  both  the  father  of  the  gods  and  the  most 
beautiful  of  mortals. 

Perhaps  we  cannot  more  fittingly  than  in  connexion 
with  these  pictures  mention  that  Watts  painted  quite  a 
number  of  pictures  of  delightful  little  people  of  the 
Cupid  type.  They  form  as  numerous  and  as  distinctive 
a group  of  pictures  as  any  other  that  he  painted.  Are 
they  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  mere  amusement  of 
hours  of  relaxation  from  more  serious  work  ? Vfn 
Afloat  has  already  been  mentioned.  One  of  the  best 
known  of  them  is  Good  Luc\  to  your  Fishing  / where  a 
chubby  little  person,  with  quite  dainty  wings,  is  just 
skimming  the  waves,  as  he  holds  his  fishing-line,  and 
eagerly  expects  a bite.  Another  winged  youngster,  with 
face  all  smiles,  and  hands  laden  with  roses,  is  called 
Promises,  When  we  see  Cupid  peeping  out  with 
mischievous  glee  from  under  a cowl,  we  are  quite 


GOOD  LUCK  rO  YOUR  FISHING  ! 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  71 

ready  to  agree  that,  as  the  title  of  the  picture  says,  the 
habit  does  not  make  the  monk.  Two  chubby  infants, 
wandering  in  evident  wonderment  through  a flowery 
land  under  the  brightest  and  bluest  of  bright  blue  skies 
are  said  to  be  in  the  land  of  Weissnlcktwo ; and  it 
must  be  in  the  same  land  that  there  has  happened  the 
minor  tragedy,  bringing  brief  sorrow  to  childish  hearts, 
of  the  escape  of  a captive  bird.  In  Jt  Fugue  and 
Trifles  light  as  j[ir,  a veritable  rout  of  these  little 
people  is  playing  in  the  air. 

Are  we  to  see  here  nothing  more  than  that  Watts 
was  fond  of  small  people  and  their  ways  and  loved  to 
make  idyllic  pictures  of  them  ? This  would  be  much, 
and,  were  there  nothing  else  to  do  so,  would  alone 
forbid  us  to  think  of  his  being,  as  some  have  repre- 
sented him,  one  who  brooded  unduly,  indeed,  almost 
exclusively,  on  the  ills  of  life  and  the  inevitability  of 
death.  But  may  we  not  think  that  beyond  this  healthy 
pleasure  in  the  innocent  joyousness  of  childhood  there 
is  also  expressed  the  faith  that  the  spirit  of  the  universe 
is  eternally  young  ? We  find  one  of  these  children,  a 
chubby,  smiling  one,  peeping  out  from  under  the  shroud- 
like drapery  that  falls  from  the  knee  of  Death,  as  she 
sits,  holding  her  court,  to  which  young  and  old  alike 
must  come.  But  the  child  does  no  homage  to  Death, 
though  an  infant  is  lying  in  her  lap  ; and  he  might 


72 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


seem  to  say  that  Death,  though  throned  in  state,  has 
no  terror  for  him  that  he  should  cease  from  smiling. 
It  may  be  replied  that  this  is  but  the  happy  ignorance 
of  childhood.  Yes,  but  is  not  the  knowledge  that 
brings  fear  only  the  ignorance  of  an  older  and  less 
happy  childhood?  Surely,  Watts,  in  picturing  these 
children,  who  seem  endowed  with  eternal  youth,  was 
thinking,  or,  rather,  feeling,  what  Wordsworth  felt, 
when  he  wrote  of  the  children  culling  flowers  in  a 
thousand  valleys,  of 

Delight  and  liberty,  the  simple  creed  of  Childhood,  whether 
busy  or  at  rest. 

With  new-fledged  hope  still  fluttering  in  his  breast : — 
and  when,  farther  in  the  poem,  he  wrote 

Hence  in  a season  of  calm  w'eather 
Though  inland  far  w'c  be, 

Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither. 

Can  in  a moment  travel  thither, 

And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 

And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore. 

Child-life  brought  to  Watts,  as  to  Wordsworth,  in- 
timations of  immortality. 

Returning  to  myth  and  legend,  Wattses  Oh^mpiis  on 
Ida  is  a splendid  interpretation  of  Greek  mythology. 
The  three  goddesses,  Hera,  the  spouse  of  Zeus,  Athena 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


73 


and  Aphrodite,  appeared  on  Mount  Ida  to  the  beauti- 
ful youth  Paris — another  picture  shows  him  looking  up 
at  the  vision — who  was  to  give  to  the  one  he  thought 
the  most  beautiful  the  apple  which  Eris  or  Strife, 
enraged  because  she  had  not  been  invited  to  the 
marriage  of  Peleus  and  Thetis,  had  thrown  among  the 
guests  to  be  a source  of  discord.  Hera  promised  that 
Paris  should  rule  over  Asia,  and  have  great  wealth  ; 
Athena  that  he  should  be  renowned  in  war  ; Aphrodite 
promised  him  the  most  beautiful  of  women  for  his  wife. 
He  gave  the  apple  to  Aphrodite ; and,  out  of  the 
jealousy  thus  aroused,  came  the  ten  years’  siege  of 
Troy.  Thus  Eris  had  her  will. 

Watts  chose  for  his  picture  the  moment  when  the 
goddesses  were  unveiling  themselves  before  Paris,  their 
forms  softened  by  the  sunlit  mountain  mist.  They  are 
distinguished  by  no  symbols,  but  only  by  difference  of 
beauty  and  bearing.  Hera  stands  in  the  centre,  the 
very  ideal  of  queenly  stateliness  ; Athena  to  her  right 
has  the  haughtiness  of  expression  and  bearing  that  befits 
a goddess  who  is  wise  in  counsel,  and  skilled  in  the  arts 
both  of  peace  and  of  war.  The  face  of  Aphrodite 
looks  out  softly  from  beneath  the  shade  of  her  unbound 
hair.  She  steps  forward  confidently,*  trusting  to  her 
bodily  charms,  which  are  displayed  without  reserve. 
These  splendid  beings  are  worthy  to  be  goddesses  ; 


74  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

and,  let  us  not  forget  : mortals  have  fashioned  their 
deities,  in  both  form  and  character,  in  their  own 
likeness. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  this  picture  with  Blake’s 
treatment  of  the  same  subject.  He  tells  the  story 
more  fully.  Paris  is  giving  the  apple  to  Aphrodite, 
urged  thereto  by  Eros,  her  child,  who  is  just  behind 
him.  Again  we  can  distinguish  each  goddess  by  her 
beauty  and  bearing  ; though  Athena  can  also  be  known 
by  her  carrying  the  jegis.  Hera  already  raises  her 
arm  with  a gesture  of  wrath.  Mercury  is  passing  be- 
hind them  to  bear  tidings  of  this  fateful  choice.  Eris, 
or  Ate,  is  already  appearing  with  a sword  in  her  hand. 
Blake  tells  us  more  ; but,  in  one  sense,  moves  us  less  ; 
there  are  not  in  his  figures  the  subtle  beauty  and  the 
illusion  of  life  that  distinguish  those  of  Watts. 

Watts  twice  took  as  a subject  the  goddess  of  the 
dawn.  The  Aurora  has  already  been  mentioned  as  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  of  his  early  pictures,  with  figures 
like  those  of  Etty  floating  in  a Turnerian  sky.  The 
harmonious  grouping,  the  sense  of  graceful  movement, 
the  swathing  of  the  figures  in  the  hazy  atmosphere,  the 
contrast  of  growing  light  and  waning  gloom,  all  unite 
to  make  a veritable  hymn  in  praise  of  the  light  of  the 
early  day.  'Dawn  is  a yet  more  impressive  picture.  On 
a lofty  peak,  the  spirit  of  the  light  that  comes  before 


DAWN 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


75 

the  sun  has  risen,  halts  as  if  to  gaze  for  a moment  on 
the  land  and  sea  over  which  she  has  soon  to  pass  ; and 
in  the  sky  above  which  are  already  stealing  first  the 
crimson  and  then  the  gold  of  the  early  morning.  Her 
hair  and  her  drapery  are  gently  stirred  by  the  breeze 
that  comes  from  the  rising  sun,  towards  which  an  eagle 
is  about  to  take  his  flight.  Soon  the  dawnlight  will 
have  passed  into  sunlight  on  this  summit,  to  appear 
again  on  others  farther  in  the  west ; and  there  again 
to  pass  into  the  full  splendour  of  day.  The  picture  is 
a lovely  allegory  of  the  ceaseless  passing  of  light  over 
the  surface  of  the  globe. 

In  Hyperion  we  see  the  sun-god  in  his  power.  He 
is  represented  as  a youth  of  magnificent  physique,  seated 
on  the  clouds,  holding  his  bow  and  arrow  in  his  hands. 
His  hair  rises  above  his  brow  like  a corona  of  flame, 
and  a circle  of  flame  breaks  out  behind  him.  Eos,  the 
Dawn,  was  his  sister;  so  was  Artemis  or  Selene,  the 
moon-goddess,  who  is  here  seen  resting  her  arm  upon 
his  stalwart  thigh.  Beneath  the  clouds  appears  part  of 
the  circle  of  the  earth.  Hyperion  gazes  upwards,  with 
a rapt  expression,  towards  the  source  of  light  that  falls 
upon  him.  Even  this  glorious  being  had  a birth ; and 
we  might  take  the  picture  to  suggest  that  the  light  he 
gives  is  derived  from  the  source  of  all  light  and  life. 
Artemis  is  dim-sighted;  and  an  old  Greek  story. 


;6  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

which  W atts  had  in  mind  when  he  painted  this  picture, 
says  that  she  angered  her  brother  by  falling  in  love 
with  a mortal.  Whereupon,  Hyperion  taunted  her 
with  her  feeble  sight,  and  told  her  she  could  not  hit  a 
certain  mark.  She  aimed,  and  hit  the  mark ; but  it  was 
her  mortal  lover,  and  the  arrow  killed  him.  No  more 
than  mortals  must  immortals  ‘marry  beneath  them’; 
and,  it  may  be  added,  there  are  probably  still  people  in 
this  country,  ignorant  of  either  Hellenism  or  Greek 
mythology,  who  would  fear  to  sleep  with  the  direct 
light  of  the  moon  falling  upon  them. 

Watts’s  Endymmiy  inevitably  called  to  mind  by  what 
has  just  been  said,  rivals  on  its  own  ground  whatever 
the  poets  have  written  of  the  beautiful  shepherd-youth 
who  loved  the  Moon  and  was  loved  by  her  in  return. 
As  he  lies  asleep,  his  staff  in  his  hand,  his  dog  sleeping 
also,  at  his  feet,  the  moon-goddess  comes  down  to  him, 
and,  bending  in  crescent-form  above  him,  places  a hand 
beneath  his 'head  and  kisses  him  upon  the  lips.  It  is 
as  if  the  beauty  of  the  night-time  had  become  sentient 
and  felt  and  obtained  response  to  love,  passionate,  yet 
pure  and  calm. 

Iris,  the  spirit  of  the  rainbow,  and  one  of  the  swift 
missive-’oearers  of  the  gods,  in  the  picture  that  bears 
her  name,  seems  to  tremble  amid  the  iridescent  colour 
wrought  by  the  sunlight  in  the  myriad  particles  of 


DAPHNE 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


77 


water.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  this  brightly 
fugitive  figure  with  the  figure  in  one  of  Watts’s  rare 
excursions  into  Northern  mythology,  the  picture  of 
Uldra,  the  Scandinavian  spirit  of  the  rainbow  in  the 
waterfall.  The  two  spirits,  as  Watts  has  pictured 
them,  and  the  very  names  they  bear,  seem  to  suggest 
the  difference  between  the  brightness  and  warmth  of 
the  South  and  the  gloom  and  cold  of  the  North;  a 
difference  that  is  echoed  in  the  two  mythologies. 

Besides  that  of  Diana  and  Endymion,  Watts  told  in 
picture  at  least  two  other  stories  of  the  love  of  the 
gods.  One  of  them  is  of  the  love  of  Zeus  for  Europa, 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  Agenor,  king  of  Phoenicia,  of 
whom  the  god  became  so  enamoured  that  he  disguised 
himself  as  a bull,  and  when  Europa  had  playfully 
leaped  on  to  his  back,  swam  with  her  across  the  sea  to 
Crete.  We  see  her  when  her  strange  voyage  has  just 
begun ; she  grasps  the  horns  of  the  bull,  and,  filled  with 
fear,  looks  back  in  vain  hope  of  help  to  her  companions 
on  the  shore  from  which  she  is  being  swiftly  borne 
away.  In  a second  picture  we  see  her  when  the 
journey  is  over,  and  the  bull  is  wading  ashore.  He 
glances  back  at  her  proudly,  and  she  seems  to  be  losing 
her  fear.  The  other  story  is  that  of  the  love  of  Apollo 
for  Daphne,  the  daughter  of  a river-god.  When  Apollo 
was  pursuing  her  she  prayed  for  help  and  was  changed 


78  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

into  a laurel-bush.  Watts  shows  her,  a beautiful 
maiden  partly  hidden  by  the  laurel-leaves,  which  we 
can  fancy,  as  we  look  at  her  and  think  of  her  story,  to 
be  visibly  spreading  themselves  around  her;  while 
she,  with  her  head  leaning  against  her  upraised  arm, 
closed  eyes,  and  expression  as  of  calm  after  storm, 
seems  already  to  be  passing  into  an  untroubled 
world  where  anxious  care  and  pain  and  passion  are 
unknown.  The  picture  gives  a sense  of  such  quiet 
as  we  feel  when  we  leave  the  crowded  city  for  field  and 
woodland.  It  calls  to  mind  Tennyson^s  longing  for 
such  calm,  when,  in  the  first  bitter  sorrow  for  the  death 
of  his  friend,  he  envies  the  yew,  which  neither  glows, 
nor  blooms,  nor  changes  in  any  gale,  and,  sick  for  its 
stubborn  hardihood,  he  would  gladly  become  Incorporate 
in  it,  and  leave  for  ever  a life  that  is  only  pain. 

Watts’s  telling  of  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche 
will  be  referred  to  elsewhere,  among  the  pictures  which 
have  human  sorrow  for  their  theme ; and  for  that  place 
we  will  leave  also  the  story  of  Orpheus  and  his  lost 
Eurydice. 

One  of  the  most  pregnant  of  Greek  myths  is  that  of 
Prometheus  who  stole  fire  from  heaven  for  the  use  of 
mortals.  Zeus,  in  anger,  chained  him  to  a rock,  where, 
each  day,  his  liver  was  devoured  by  an  eagle  and  restored 
to  him  at  night.  From  this  torment,  which  otherwise 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  79 

would  have  been  endless,  the  fire-stealer,  with  the 
consent  of  Zeus,  was  delivered  by  Heracles  who  slew 
the  eagle.  The  name  Prometheus  means  forethought, 
and  the  bearer  of  it  was  the  fabled  instructor  of  men 
in  science  and  in  the  arts  and  crafts.  What  a strange 
chapter  in  human  history  this  story  opens  out ! In  fear 
and  trembling,  lest  they  should  thereby  incur  the  anger 
and  jealousy  of  the  gods,  have  men  added  knowledge  to 
knowledge,  developed  skill  in  art  and  craft ; and  used 
the  powers  of  nature  to  add  to  their  own  well-being  and 
comfort.  Nor  have  such  thoughts  ceased  among  us  even 
yet.  There  are  those  who  think  we  ought  to  supplicate 
God  for  health  rather  than  make  intelligent  use  of  the 
curative  powers  which  science  has  discovered  in  nature. 
To  such  people,  the  gods,  we  will  put  it,  are  like  foolish 
parents  who  want  their  children  always  to  remain  chil- 
dren, and  are  offended  by  the  thought  that  they  have 
come  of  age  and  can  speak  and  act  for  themselves. 
Medicine,  by  the  by,  was  said  to  have  been  taught  to 
men  by  Prometheus.  W atts  shows  us  this  daring  bene- 
factor of  mankind,  who  even  defied  great  Zeus  in  its 
behalf,  as  a huge  Titanic  form,  lying  uneasily  upon 
the  rock  to  which  he  is  bound ; while  spirits  who 
bemoan  his  fate  are  circling  round  him.  He  turns  his 
head  towards  the  vast  globe  of  the  earth  upon  which  is 
the  race  for  whose  sake  he  is  being  tortured. 


8o  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


‘The  Wife  of  Plutus  is  a picture  that  may  well  have 
been  painted  with  a modern  reference  ; indeed  with  one 
for  all  time.  The  spouse  of  the  god  of  wealth  has  had 
lavished  upon  her  all  that  mere  selfish  desire  could  dream 
of ; and  she  lies  asleep,  the  hand  that  is  laid  upon  her 
breast  grasping  jewels.  She  is  the  very  incarnation  of 
satiety.  She  has  her  reward.  It  is  good  to  turn  from 
her  to  The  Wife  of  Pygmalion^  beautiful  alike  in  body, 
face,  and  the  sweet  purity  of  soul  that  reveals  itself 
through  her  gentle  mien  and  expression,  and  is  symbol- 
ised by  the  lilies  behind  her.  Well  might  a sculptor 
who  had  created  a form  so  lovely  and  so  noble  as  this 
pray  to  the  goddess  of  love  that  life  might  be  granted  to 
the  semblance  of  life,  the  ideal  become  the  real.  May 
not  this  picture,  and  the  story  that  suggested  it,  also  have 
their  modern  reference  ? If  we  have  and  hold  to  an 
imaginative  ideal  of  life  and  love  will  they  not  indeed 
become  real  ? 

W e end  this  series  of  pictures  with  one  that  breathes 
the  very  spirit  of  Hellas,  an  idyll  of  health  and  beauty  : 
Arcadia,  The  name  of  the  most  secluded  of  the  states 
of  ancient  Greece  has  become  synonymous  with  a 
life  amid  natural  surroundings,  remote  from  the  turmoil 
of  town  and  city  ; the  peaceful  life  of  village  and 
hamlet,  with  the  care  of  cattle  and  the  tillage  of  the  soil 
for  labour,  and  simple  pleasures  for  recreation,  W atts’s 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND 


8 


picture  hardly  suggests  such  simplicity  as  this.  It  is 
rather  an  epitome  of  the  Greek  ideal  of  a highly 
civilised  life  from  which  the  freshness  of  beauty  and 
of  nature  have  not  been  banished.  The  climate  and  the 
traditions  of  Greece  permitted  an  open-air  life  such  as 
is  impossible  for  us.  Youths  and  maidens  could  bathe 
their  unclothed  bodies  in  the  sunlight,  until  they  glowed 
with  health  and  beauty.  This  it  is  that  Watts  shows 
to  us.  A maiden,  lovely  in  form  and  feature,  stands 
in  the  sunshine,  preparing  to  enter  a marble  bath,  with 
a background  of  tree-stems  and  foliage  and,  beyond,  a 
bright,  blue  sky.  She  seems  lost  in  pleasant  reverie  as 
she  loosens  and  lets  fall  her  garments. 

It  would  be  idle  to  search  for  words  with  which  to 
describe  the  sense  this  picture  gives  of  perfect  health 
and  purity  of  body  and  mind,  trained  amid  the  beauty  of 
nature  and  of  noble  art.  It  is  not  a mere  dream  of  the 
past.  It  is  also  a criticism  of  the  present.  We  cannot, 
perhaps,  live  as  near  to  nature  as  they  lived  in  ancient 
Greece  ; but  we  need  not  almost  banish  nature  from  our 
lives.  W atts  painted  not  a few  pictures  in  stern  reproof 
of  evil.  This  one,  and  others  of  the  pictures  taken 
from  Greek  life  and  story,  would  seem  to  reprove  us  by 
their  brightness  and  beauty  because  we  either  wilfully 
or  heedlessly  yield  ourselves  to  hideousness  and  gloom. 
Arcadia  ; the  name  sounds  almost  sadly  to  us,  because 
G 


82  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


it  reminds  us  of  what  we  might  be  and  are  not.  ‘ We 
have  given  our  hearts  away,  a sordid  boon  ’ ; and  the 
joys  of  health,  and  the  companionship  of  unsullied 
nature,  and  the  perfecting  of  lovely  art,  are  not  for  us. 
This  picture  alone  might  well  persuade  us  to  think  on 
these  things,  and,  thinking  on  them,  to  nerve  ourselves  to 
win  them  back  again.  Neglected  it  may  be,  but  not 
outworn,  is  the  best,  at  least,  of  the  creed  of  ancient 
Greece  ; and  we  may  well  be  grateful  to  the  artist  who 
felt  its  truth  and  beauty  and  made  them  live  again  for 
our  behoof. 


IV 

CHIVALRY 

W ATTs  painted  a number  of  pictures  that  can  perhaps 
be  most  fitly  grouped  together  under  such  a heading  as 
Chivalry  ; and  it  is  a convenient  arrangement  to  give 
them  a brief  chapter  to  themselves.  Some  of  them  are 
devoted  to  the  ardent  enthusiasm  of  youth  and  early  man- 
hood, and  others  to  the  base  refusal  of  noble  quests.  They 
are  related  to  the  stories  of  the  heroes  of  Greece,  as  the 
5/.  George  of  Donatello  is  related  to  a statue  of  a Greek 
athlete.  Let  us  approach  them  by  way  of  a remarkable 
statement  of  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  which  exactly  strikes 
‘ the  mark’s  true  opposite.’  It  will  help  by  contrast  to 
bring  out  clearly  their  prevailing  note.  The  French 
critic  says  that  ‘ thinking  over  all  the  artists  who  work 
in  England,  it  is  Watts,  the  gloomiest  of  them,  who 
makes  a mark  on  the  memory.  He  has  painted  nothing 
to  amuse  us.  He  has  been  the  executioner  of  all  dreams 
of  joy,  of  all  illusions,  of  all  fresh  graceful  forms,  of 
all  delicate  shades,  of  all  pleasure.’  We  have  already 

83 


84  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

met  with  much  in  the  pictures  of  Greek  myth  and 
legend  that  contradicts  this  statement.  The  pictures 
grouped  together  in  this  chapter  will  make  the  contradic- 
tion more  emphatic.  For  though  in  some  of  them 
Watts  treats  of  death  and  evil,  it  is  but  to  throw  joyous 
and  noble  life  into  higher  relief. 

First  in  the  group  we  take  Aspirations^  a title  hardly 
needed  to  explain  what  the  painter  meant  by  a handsome 
youth,  with  a wealth  of  auburn  hair,  a clear  unclouded 
brow,  wide-opened  eyes,  and  mouth  that  tells  of  high 
resolve,  fearful  of  nothing  but  failure  in  the  knightly 
quest  to  which  the  armour  he  wears,  and  the  spear  he 
firmly  grasps,  declare  him  to  be  committed.  In  Watch- 
man^ zvhat  of  the  Night  ? we  see  another  youth,  grasping 
with  both  hands  the  hilt  of  his  sword,  and  gazing  with 
rapt  expression  out  into  the  night.  The  moonlight 
illumines  his  face  and  flowing  hair,  and  gleams  from 
the  plate  armour  in  which  he  is  clad.  In  Una  and  the 
Red  Cross  Knight^  the  youth  of  the  first  picture  is 
doing  his  knightly  devoir  ; fully  clothed  in  armour, 
except  that  his  head  is  bare,  with  his  shield  at  his  back 
and  his  spear  in  his  hand,  he  rides  a war-horse  and 
towers  over  Una,  who  rides  the  humbler  beast  of 
burden. 

Watts  here  gives  a free  pictorial  translation  of  the 
lines  in  The  Fairy  Queen  in  which  Spenser  tells  of  the 


ASPIRATIONS 


! 


i 


CHIVALRY 


85  . 

knight  and  Una  riding  forth  together,  the  former 
eager  to  pursue  the  adventure  that  Gloriana  had  given 
him  ; 

And  ever,  as  he  rode,  his  heart  did  yearn 
To  prove  his  puissance  in  battle  brave 
Upon  his  foe,  and  his  new  force  to  learn  ; 

Upon  his  foe,  a Dragon  horrible  and  stern. 

Of  the  knight’s  companion  the  poem  says  : 

A lovely  Lady  rode  him  fair  beside. 

Upon  a lowly  ass  more  white  than  snow  ; 

Yet  she  much  whiter  ; but  the  same  did  hide 
Under  a veil,  that  wimpled  was  full  low  ; 

And  over  all  a black  stole  she  did  throw  : 

As  one  that  inly  mourn’d,  so  was  she  sad, 

And  heavy  sate  upon  her  palfrey  slow  ; 

Seemed  in  heart  some  hidden  care  she  had  ; 

And  by  her  in  a line  a milk-white  lamb  she  lad. 

Watts  has  faithfully  interpreted  the  spirit  of  the 
poem.  The  lady  bends  down  her  head,  depressed  by 
sorrowful  thoughts;  the  youthful  knight  bears  himself 
erect,  as  becomes  her  protector,  yet  looks  down  at  her 
with  silent,  respectful  sympathy.  So  Holiness  and 
T ruth  pass  out  into  the  world,  there  to  meet  with  many 
perils,  and  in  the  end  to  be  united 

With  sacred  rites  and  vows  for  ever  to  abide. 

Britomart  is  another  free  translation  of  a passage  in 
The^  Fairy  Queen,  which  tells  how  the  maiden  who,  in 


86  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


the  poem,  stands  for  Chastity,  looked  one  day  in  her 
father’s  magic  mirror,  and  saw  there  Sir  Artegall, 

A comely  Knight,  all  arm’d  in  complete  wise, 

Through  whose  bright  ventail  lifted  up  on  high 
His  manly  face,  that  did  his  foes  agrise. 

And  friends  to  terms  of  gentle  truth  entice, 

Look’d  forth,  as  Phcebus’  face  out  of  the  east 
Hetwixt  two  steady  mountains  doth  arise : 

Portly  his  person  was,  and  much  increast 
Through  his  heroic  grace  and  honourable  gest. 

Watts,  as  suggested  above,  does  not  confine  himself 
to  exact  illustration  of  the  poem,  ‘ but  imagines  Britomart 
returning  to  her  mirror,  where,  reading  from  the  book 
of  Magic,  she  calls  up  the  shadowy  apparitions;  but 
daring  not  to  look  herself  lest  the  beloved  vision  fail, 
she  prays  her  nurse  to  tell  her  what  is  passing  there.’ 
This  use  of  a pictorial  licence  gave  the  painter  much 
more  scope  than  a literal  rendering  of  the  poem  would 
have  afforded.  Britomart  sits  facing  us  with  the  book 
of  Magic  on  her  knee  ; she  listens  eagerly  to  what  her 
nurse,  whose  hand  she  nervously  grasps,  is  telling  her. 
Behind  her  is  the  mirror,  in  which  can  be  seen  Una 
and  the  various  knights  who  appear  in  the  poem.  In 
front  of  Britomart  is  a lily  growing  in  a vase:  the 
symbol  of  purity. 

Sir  Galahad,  to  whom  alone  of  the  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table  it  was  granted  to  see  the  Holy  Grail, 
is  the  subject  of  one  of  W atts’s  most  beautiful  pictures. 


SIR  GALAHAD 


CHIVALRY 


«7 

He  has  been  passing  through  a wood  in  the  glorious 
sunshine  of  a lovely  summer’s  day,  and  the  sunlight  is 
reflected  from  cloud,  and  tree,  and  armour,  and  shines 
full  on  the  face  of  the  youthful  knight,  and  on  his  milk- 
white  steed,  from  which  he  has  dismounted.  His 
sword  is  at  his  side,  his  shield  on  his  back ; his  head 
is  bare ; he  stands  with  his  hands  one  within  the  other 
and  rested  just  above  his  knee.  Thus,  in  an  attitude 
that  suggests  worship,  he  gazes  with  rapt  expression  as 
the  mystic  vision  of  the  grail  passes  before  him. 
Words  could  convey  no  hint  of  the  beauty  of  this  idyll 
of  purity.  Watts  repeated  the  subject  and  gave  one 
copy  of  it  to  Eton  College;  and  it  hangs  in  the  chapel 
there,  where  many  generations  of  English  boys  will 
see  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  be  inspired  by  it. 

Not  every  one  who  fights  for  an  ideal  lives  to  see  the 
victory  won.  The  hardest  part  of  the  struggle,  indeed, 
falls  to  the  lot  of  those  who  cannot  hope  to  see  the  end 
attained.  Is  the  fate  of  such  as  these  a pitiable  one? 
Wordsworth  thought  not.  He  wrote  of  the  warrior 

Who,  whether  praise  of  him  must  walk  the  eartli 
For  ever,  and  to  noble  deeds  give  birth, 

Or  he  must  fall,  to  sleep  without  his  fame. 

And  leave  a dead  unprofitable  name — 

Finds  comfort  in  himself  and  in  his  cause  ; 

And,  while  the  mortal  mist  is  gathering,  draws 
His  breath  in  confidence  of  Heaven’s  applause  : 

This  is  the  happy  Warrior;  this  is  He 
That  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be. 


88 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


Watts  painted  a picture  of  the  Happy  Warrior — it 
is  now  in  the  gallery  of  modern  paintings  at  Munich. 
It  is  our  youthful  knight  again;  and  he  has  received  a 
fatal  wound  in  battle.  The  helmet  has  fallen  from  his 
head ; he  himself  is  falling  backwards ; the  mortal  mist 
is  gathering  ; but  just  as  consciousness  is  fading  away, 
the  ideal  for  which  he  has  fought  takes  the  shape  of  a 
woman,  who  kisses  him  upon  the  brow.  Watts  did 
not  borrow  from  literature  the  thought  of  the  warrior 
thus  consoled  in  the  moment  of  death ; but  years 
afterwards  he  met  with  it  in  an  Eastern  poem. 

Life,  as  we  know  it,  draws  all  its  worth  from  the 
risk  and  final  certainty  of  death.  All  the  meaning 
would  be  gone  from  courage  and  high  endeavour  if 
they  could  never  be  put  to  the  supreme  test  of  renouncing 
life  itself.  Such  a picture  as  The  Happy  Warrior  is 
needed  to  give  full  value  to  Aspiratmis  or  Sir  Galahad; 
and  other  pictures  are  also  needed  fully  to  bring  out 
their  meaning  : pictures  of  those  who  have  never  taken, 
or  who  have  taken  and  not  kept,  the  vows  of  knightly 
quest.  The  true  and  the  false  stand  over  against  each 
other  in  life;  and  they  must  do  so  in  both  literature 
and  art  if  life  is  to  be  truly  interpreted.  Against 
Watts’s  Aspirations  we  may  put  The  Idle  Child  of 
Fanc^;  gay,  careless  Cupid,  seated  on  the  globe,  and 
ready  to  make  mischievous  play  with  his  arrows.  In 


I’HE  HAPPY  WARRIOR 


CHIVALRY 


89 

the  same  opposition  we  may  put  Mischiefs  in  which  a 
wanton  sprite  is  drawing  a youth,  by  a wreath  of  flowers 
round  his  neck,  down  from  his  strong  castle  on  the 
height,  into  the  valley  below,  where  the  roses  turn 
into  a tangle  of  briars  about  him.  His  bow  and  arrows 
have  fallen  from  his  hands ; already  he  is  the  defence- 
less prey  of  evil.  Over  against  8ir  Galahad^  we  may 
put  the  two  pictures  entitled  Fata  Morgaua.  Upon 
Sir  Galahad,  the  light  of  the  Holy  Grail  shines  brightly 
among  the  trees;  the  soldier  in  the  other  pictures  is 
beguiled  to  his  doom  by  the  lovely  form  of  an  enchantress, 
fleeing  ever  before  him,  just  beyond  his  reach,  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  gloom  of  the  forest.  Over  against  the 
Happy  Warrior,  dying  for  his  ideal,  and  knowing  that 
his  sacrifice  is  not  in  vain,  we  may  put  Watts’s  picture  of 
the  young  man,  who,  because  he  had  great  possessions, 
with  which  he  could  not  bear  to  part,  turned  away 
from  Christ  himself.  We  do  not  see  his  face,  for  he 
has  already  turned  away.  But  the  head,  bowed  in 
shame  he  cannot  hide  from  himself,  the  rich  apparel, 
and  the  jewelled  hand,  are  enough.  He  is  neither  for 
God  nor  for  God’s  enemy,  but  only  for  himself.  He 
has  asked  the  wrong  question  to  begin  with : ‘ W hat 
can  I do  for  myself  ? ’ not  ‘ W hat  can  I do  to  help 
others?’  Let  us  sadly  mark  him,  and  pass  him  by, 
and  return  to  Sir  Galahad,  who  heartens  us,  and 


90  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

gladdens  and  makes  pure  our  thoughts,  as  we  look  at 
him.  Watts’s  pictures  of  sin  and  sorrow  and  death  are 
but  the  necessary  contrast  to  those  of  holiness  and  joy 
and  life.  To  say  he  is  the  gloomiest  of  our  painters  is 
to  ignore  the  greater  part  of  his  work,  and  to  mistake 
the  purport  of  the  rest.  The  Childhood  of  Zeus, 
Dazvn,  Arcadia,  Aspirations,  Sir  Galahad — let  us  not 
forget  later  on  that  Watts  painted  such  pictures  as  these, 
as  well  as  Mammon  smA  The  Minotaur  and  the  pictures 
of  which  the  subject  is  death. 


FOR  HE  FIAD  GREA'I’  POSSESSIONS 


V 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 

W E have  seen  that  W atts^s  hope  of  painting  a great  epic 
of  humanity  on  the  walls  of  some  appropriate  building 
was  destined  never  to  be  realised.  We  may  regret  this  ; 
though,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  well  to  consider  that 
most  of  the  mural  painting  done  in  this  country,  including 
that  of  Watts  himself,  has  suffered  both  from  climatic 
conditions  and  from  the  lack  of  an  adequate  technical 
tradition.  He  did  paint  his  epic,  only  on  canvas  ; and 
it  is  almost  certain  to  endure  longer  in  this  form  than  it 
would  have  done  in  any  method  of  mural  painting 
available  fifty  years  ago.  The  alliance  of  painting  with 
architecture  gives  monumental  grandeur  and  impressive- 
ness ; and  the  Lincoln’s  Inn  fresco  shows  that  Watts 
was  capable  .of  design  on  the  largest  scale  ; though,  in 
that  case,  the  non-pictorial  nature  .of  his  subject  made 
against  complete  success.  But  how  magnificent  such  a 
picture  as  Chaos  would  have  looked  on  a monumental 
scale,  and  in  a dignified  architectural  setting ! 


91 


92  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

It  is  idle,  however,  to  lament  that  we  have  not  every- 
thing we  might  have  desired  when,  in  fact,  we  have  so 
much.  Watts  accomplished  his  task,  though  not  in  its 
most  appropriate  form.  And  there  are  compensations  ; 
for  the  student  of  his  works  can  link  together  pictures  that 
could  never  have  formed  a single  series  of  mural  paintings. 
Art  has  lost  much  by  the  non-realisation  of  his  scheme  ; 
but  the  interpretation  of  life  has  lost  little,  if  anything  ; 
and  the  permanent  exhibition  of  a representative  collection 
of  his  works  at  Limnerslease,  in  a building,  simple  in 
form,  but  sumptuous  in  colour,  amid  beautiful  surround- 
ings full  of  associations  with  the  painter  and  his  work, 
greatly  lessens  our  regret,  and  certainly  fills  us  with 
gratitude  to  the  railway  directors  whose  rigid  com- 
mercialism prevented  Watts  from  spending  years  of 
work  at  Euston  Station. 

W atts  was  well  equipped  for  conceiving  and  painting 
a great  epic.  He  was  neither  a man  of  science,  nor  a 
systematic  philosopher  ; but  the  deep  things  of  life  are 
not  hidden  from  those  who  are  but  babes  in  respect  to 
abstruse  learning.  It  was  not  because  he  was  a 
philosopher  that  Kant  was  filled  with  wonder  when 
contemplating  the  starry  universe  without  and  the 
conscience  within.  Such  noble  emotion  is  the  common 
birthright  of  us  all.  The  child  can  terrify  himself 
with  thoughts  of  infinity  and  eternity.  It  is  only  if  we 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


93 

live  too  much  in  the  light  of  common  day,  occupied 
always  with  the  trivialities  of  a material  civilisation, 
that  the  early  sense  of  wonder  fails,  instead  of  ever 
increasing,  as  childish  fear  changes  to  a confidence 
which  no  difficulty,  doubt  or  mystery  can  even 
momentarily  disturb. 

Watts,  like  Tennyson,  pondered  much  upon  human 
life  and  destiny,  and  the  universe  in  which  they  are 
wrought  out,  until  the  need  for  giving  expression  to 
the  thoughts  and  emotions  which  took  form  within  his 
mind  became  irresistibly  urgent.  Already,  when  he 
was  passing  into  manhood,  geology  and  astronomy 
were  opening  out  the  great  vistas  of  evolution  ; and, 
again  like  Tennyson,  he  was  not  too  old  to  accept  the 
new  knowledge  and  to  reconcile  it  with  his  human, 
spiritual  need.  The  thoughts  that  Tennyson  expressed 
in  words.  Watts  expressed  in  form  and  colour.  Tenny- 
son asked  the  heavens  if  his  tiny  spark  of  being  would 
wholly  vanish  in  their  deeps  and  heights,  and  if  his 
day  must  needs  be  dark  by  reason  of  their  boundless 
nights,  and  rush  of  suns  and  roll  of  systems  ; and  he 
heard,  in  answer  : 

‘ Spirit,  nearing  yon  dark  portal  at  the  limit  of  thy  human 
state, 

Fear  not  thou  the  hidden  purpose  of  that  Power  which  alone  is 
great. 

Nor  the  myriad  world,  His  shadow,  nor  the  silent  opener  of  the 
gate.’ 


GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


94 

Such,  in  effect  were  the  questionvS  that  Watts  also 
asked ; and  such  was  the  answer,  in  effect,  that  he 
received — or,  if  the  reader  will  have  it  so,  gave. 

He  could  not  think  of  the  myriad  world  apart 
from  an  all-pervading  spirit.  The  vaster  the  universe, 
the  vaster  he  of  whom  it  is  the  shadow.  Looking 
up  into  the  great  star-field  at  night,  there  must  have 
come  to  him  the  conviction  that  such  tillage  and  plant- 
ing needed  a husbandman ; hence  he  painted  T/v 

^ozcer  of  the  Systemsy  a vast  figure,  in  a robe  in  which 
green  plays  amid  intensest  blue,  sweeping  through 
space,  and  scattering  behind  him  the  golden  star-seed. 
Solemn  as  the  midnight  sky  is  the  picture  ; and  the 

Sower,  whom  we  see  and  yet  see  not,  but  only  his 

ample  robe  and  the  hand  with  which  he  sows,  does 
not  fail  as  a vision  of  ‘that  Infinite  and  Eternal 

Energy  which  transcends  both  our  knowledge  and 
imagination,^  and  of  which  the  agnostic  philosopher 
whose  words  are  here  quoted  predicated  a nature  not 
lower  but  inconceivably  higher  than  personality. 

Chaosy  the  picture  that  should  have  begun  the  great 
series  of  mural  paintings,  is  an  allegory  of  evolution. 
The  science  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  tells  of  a 
beginning  in  which  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth,  and  declares  that  the  earth  was  then  without 
form  and  void..  The  science  of  to-day  pushes  back  to 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


95 

no  beginning  of  all  things,  but  only  ventures  a nebular 
hypothesis,  a theory  that  vast  areas  of  whirling  gases 
are  condensed  into  solar  systems,  and,  in  particular,  that 
the  system  of  which  our  earth  is  a unit,  was  thus 
formed ; a chaos  such  as  are  the  nebulae  the  telescope 
discloses,  slowly  changing  into  the  cosmos  in  the 
midst  of  which  we  find  a home.  Wattses  picture 
shows  chaos  thus  changing  into  cosmos.  At  one  side 
of  it,  are  rocks  rent  by  fire,  and  huge  titanic  figures 
writhe  there  in  torment ; at  the  other  side  the  moun- 
tains have  taken  form  and  are  at  rest,  and  the  titanic 
figures  are  tranquilly  seated  upon  them.  An  evolution 
both  in  material  and  human  conditions  is  symbolised  by 
the  picture.  The  painter’s  own  account  of  it,  con- 
tained in  the  catalogue  of  the  New  Gallery  Exhibi- 
tion of  his  works,  is  that  ‘the  conditions  of  the 
several  periods  are  more  or  less  distinctly  described  by 
the  movement  of  the  presiding  genius  of  each  ; and 
the  modifications  may  be  traced  from  the  earliest 
periods,  on  the  left  of  the  picture,  to  where  the 
reposeful  giants  on  the  right  are  suggestive  of  a state  of 
stability  and  order.  From  the  centre  of  the  picture, 
at  first  separately,  denoting  an  interrupted  record,  the 
forms  representing  the  cycles  of  time  become  linked  in 
an  unbroken  chain,  to  indicate  a perception  of  the 
permanent  establishment  of  order.’  A large  version 


96  GEORGE,  FREDERICK  WATTS 

of  the  picture  hangs  in  the  T ate  Gallery  ; and  there  is 
also  a quite  small  one  ; but  such  is  Watts’s  mastery  of 
form  and  of  the  symbolic  use  of  colour,  and  his  power 
to  suggest  vast  spatial  dimensions,  that  the  small 
picture  is  hardly  less  impressive  than  the  large  one. 
The  tiny  figures,  writhing  or  at  rest,  are  Titans  in 
effect.  Within  an  oblong  measured  by  inches  we  see 
a world  in  the  making.  St.  Paul,  this  picture  moves 
one  to  say,  were  he  living  now,  would  assuredly  be  an 
evolutionist.  Nay,  he  zcas  an  evolutionist.  ‘ How- 
beit  that  was  not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which 
is  natural,  and  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual.’ 
‘ The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together  until  now.  And  not  only  they,  but  ourselves 
also,  which  have  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we 
ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for  the  adop- 
tion, to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body.’  This  is  at 
least  the  germ  of  evolution;  and  Watts’s  Chaos,  and 
the  other  pictures  we  are  about  to  consider,  are  but 
pictorial  versions  of  this  theme. 

Far  back  beyond  the  days  of  the  cave-dweller, 
roughly  shaping  flints  into  tool  and  weapon,  lie  the 
ages  when  man  was  slowly  emerging  from  the  brute, 
and  beyond  again  lie  the  measureless  distances  of  time 
during  which  life  was  being  evolved,  not  by  stages,  but 
by  minute  gradations.  We  might  picture  those  long. 


FHE  SLUMBER  OF 


THE  AGES 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


97 

long  ages  in  various  ways.  Watts  thought  of  them  as 
a sleep,  as  a time  when  no  rational  being  was  awake  in 
the  world  ; and  so  he  painted  a picture,  The  Clumber  oj 
the  Agei^  in  which  we  see  a woman  seated  against  a 
mass  of  rock,  her  head  fallen  upon  her  shoulder,  in  a 
sleep  that  looks  like  the  sleep  into  which  a god  might 
have  put  her.  Light  is  falling  on  her  ; it  is  passing 
over  her  ; it  has  almost  reached  her  eyes ; when  it 
does  reach  them  she  will  awake.  There  is  a child  in 
her  lap  ; the  light  shines  fully  upon  him.  It  has 
awakened  him ; and  he  turns  his  head  from  the 
woman’s  breast  to  gaze  in  uncomprehending  wonder  at 
what  the  light  reveals.  ‘In  this  picture,’  said  the 
painter,  ‘the  great  stretches  of  time,  since  the  earth 
ceased  to  be  a formless  mass,  are  represented  as  a 
mighty  mother,  with  man,  the  child  upon  her  lap,  grow- 
ing to  conscious  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  his  place 
in  the  scheme  of  creation.’ 

In  W hence y W hither Watts  pictured  humanity  as 
an  infant,  who  has  just  come  from  the  great  ocean  and 
is  making  his  first  steps  on  the  land.  Mr.  Clausen  is 
quoted  later  on  as  saying  that,  even  had  the  picture 
no  title,  we  should  know  that  it  was  not  a mere 
material  ocean  from  which  the  child  had  emerged. 
Once  more  we  inevitably  think  of  one  of  Tennyson’s 
poems  : 

H 


98  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

Out  of  the  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep, 

From  that  great  deep,  before  our  world  begins, 
Whereon  the  spirit  of  God  moves  as  he  will — 

Out  of  the  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep 
From  that  true  world  within  the  world  we  see. 
Whereof  our  world  is  but  the  bounding  shore — 

Out  of  the  deep.  Spirit,  out  of  the  deep, 

With  this  ninth  moon,  that  sends  the  hidden  sun 
Down  yon  dark  sea,  thou  comest,  darling  boy. 

In  another  picture,  Destiny — the  two  hang  together 
in  the  Limnerslease  gallery — the  child  has  passed  a 
short  distance  inland,  and  already  the  dark  sea  begins  to 
look  remote.  He  is  seated,  and  hovering  over  him, 
shadowing  him  with  her  garments,  is  Destiny,  clothed 
in  blue  and  scarlet  and  gold,  and  looking  into  the  book 
of  futurity.  What  is  the  future  to  be?  Watts  him- 
self would  probably  have  quoted,  in  answer,  the  closing 
lines  of  Tennyson^s  poem  : 

Live  thou  ! and  of  the  grain  and  husk,  the  grape 
And  ivyberry,  choose  ; and  still  depart 
From  death  to  death  thro’  life  and  life,  and  find 
Nearer  and  ever  nearer  Him,  who  wrought 
Not  Matter,  nor  the  finite-infinite. 

But  this  main-miracle,  that  thou  art  thou. 

With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world. 

The  colour,  in  Destiny^  has  a solemn  note.  In 
Evolution  the  pervading  hue,  only  emphasised  by  the 
blue  of  the  sky,  is  a melancholy  drab.  A gaunt-look- 
ing  woman  shades  her  eyes  with  her  hands,  anxiously 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


99 

peering  into  the  distance.  She  cannot,  like  Destiny, 
read  the  book  of  the  future  She  is  drab ; and  the 
children  playing  about  her  knee,  some  of  them  quarrel- 
ling as  they  play,  are  drab  also.  She  is  ‘ the  primeval 
mother  of  Conflict  and  Harmony,  herself  uncertain  of 
the  future  of  her  offspring.^ 

The  moral  of  this  picture  does  not  apply  only  to  the 
far-off  past.  Man  has  long  since  left  the — to  him — 
dark  ocean  that  rounds  this  life  ; he  has  long  awakened 
from  the  slumber  of  the  ages,  long,  at  least,  as  we 
count  length  of  time ; yet  still  Conflict  as  well  as 
Harmony  is  with  us.  The  latter  may  have  waxed  and 
the  former  may  have  waned ; or  it  may  be  thought 
that  Conflict  is  still  as  strong  as  ever,  only  taking  less 
brutal,  less  murderous  ways  of  satisfying  her  desire. 
W atts  painted  a picture  of  a woman  with  a child  upon 
her  lap  ; she  has  sunk  down  worn  out  with  weary 
tramping  from  place  to  place  ; she  holds  in  her  hand  a 
sprig  of  olive  ; afar  off  on  the  night-horizon  she  sees  a 
light ; the  child  also  looks  or  listens.  This  outcast 
woman,  ‘ Peace,  the  rightful  sovereign  of  an  intellectual 
world,  with  Good  Will,  symbolised  by  an  innocent 
child,  wearied  and  footsore,  regards  through  the  dim 
atmosphere  a distant  glimmer,  dawn  or  conflagration.’ 
Which  is  it  i It  may  be  that  not  even  disarmament 
and  universal  arbitration  would  put  an  end  to  essential 
conflict.  There  is  still,  and  it  seems  as  if  there  will 


ICO  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


long  be,  strife  and  contention  in  the  world.  The  evo- 
lution of  man  is  not  yet  completed.  His  peace  is 
war:  the  war  of  selfish  competition.  Watts  painted 
Goodwill  by  himself,  an  outcast  child,  lying  against  a 
bank  of  earth,  over  v/hich  we  see  long  trails  of  smoke 
coming  from  factory  chimneys.  ‘ I confess  I am  not 
charmed,’  wrote  John  Stuart  Mill,  ‘ with  the  ideal  of 
life  held  out  by  those  who  think  that  the  normal  state 
of  human  things  is  that  of  struggling  to  get  on  ; that 
the  trampling,  crushing,  elbowing,  and  treading  on  each 
others’  heels,  which  form  the  existing  type  of  social 
life,  are  the  most  desirable  lot  of  human  kind,  or  any- 
thing but  the  disagreeable  symptoms  of  one  of  the 
phases  of  industrial  progress.’  The  thinker,  and  the 
artist  to  whom  alone  he  sat  for  his  portrait,  were  at  one 
in  this  matter. 

Once  more  we  turn  from  painter  to  poet,  and  then 
from  poet  back  to  painter.  In  Tennyson’s  Idyll  of 
the  Holy  Grail,  Sir  Percivale  describes  to  the  monk 
Ambrosius  the  mighty  hall  that  Merlin  the  wise  had 
built  for  King  Arthur,  and  the  four  great  zones  of 
sculpture  which  gird  the  hall,  with  mystic  symbols  set 
betwixt  them. 

And  in  the  lowest  beasts  are  slaying  men, 

And  in  the  second  men  are  slaying  beasts, 

And  on  the  third  are  warriors,  perfect  men. 

And  on  the  fourth  are  men  with  growing  wings. 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY  loi 

This  epitome  of  human  evolution,  like  the  passages 
quoted  from  St.  Paul,  might  serve  also  as  an  epitome 
of  the  purport  of  some  of  the  most  important  of 
Watts’s  subject-pictures.  It  is  the  contest  of  good 
and  evil,  of  the  higher  and  the  lower  nature,  that  they 
portray.  That  contest  is  not  yet  over ; and  at  times 
it  seems  as  if  evil  rather  than  good  were  gaining 
ground ; as  if  the  beasts  were  still  slaying  men.  In 
several  pictures  Watts  sought  to  arouse  men  to  the 
need  for  strenuous  warfare  with  evil  : with  evil  en- 
throned among  us  to-day,  and  to  bring  home  to  those 
who  yield  to  evil  the  fearful  degradation  it  means  for 
them,  and  the  cruel  suffering  it  imposes  on  others. 
Revelations  of  the  social  sins  of  our  great  cities  are 
said  to  have  caused  him  to  paint  The  Minotaur ; to 
show  the  bestial  monster  of  Crete,  leaning  over  the 
rampart  of  his  castle,  crushing  a helpless  bird  beneath 
his  hoofs,  and  watching  with  impatient  eagerness 
the  approaching  vessel  bringing  him  the  youths  and 
maidens  upon  whose  flesh  he  longs  to  glut  his  brutal 
appetite.  In  Cruel  Vengeajice,  a vulture  - headed 
monster,  clutching  at  the  neck  of  a naked  man,  whom 
it  holds  down  with  a misshapen  foot,  is  a horrible, 
but  accurately  appropriate  symbol  of  an  evil  passion 
from  which  humanity  is  far  as  yet  from  being  free. 
In  picture  after  picture  Watts  rebuked  the  love  of 


102  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


money  in  which  so  many  evils,  often  unsuspectedly, 
have  their  root.  A loathsome  creature  is  the  Mammon 
he  depicts  in  the  picture  bearing  that  name.  The 
bullet  head  is  supported  by  a neck  that  is  but  folds  of 
flesh,  and  the  expression  of  the  face,  of  which  the 
repulsive  features  seem  to  fall  below  the  human  to  the 
brute,  denotes  a horrible  gloating  over  success  gained 
by  the  crushing  down  of  others.  It  is  the  incarnation 
of  cruelly  aggressive  selfishness  Hand  and  foot  are 
ministering  to  the  passion  expressed  by  the  face  : they 
are  crushing  out  the  life  of  a man  and  a woman  already 
reduced  to  nakedness.  A golden  crown  encircles  the 
brow  of  this  inhuman  monarch.  Sculls  ornament  his 
throne.  Bags  of  gold  lie  in  his  lap  ; his  outer  gar- 
ment is  the  colour  of  gold ; his  under  garment  is 
the  colour  of  blood.  This,  then,  is  the  real  meaning 
of  the  greed  of  gain.  Again,  in  Labour  arid  Greedy 
Watts  contrasts  the  stalwart  form  and  simple,  honest 
face  of  a labourer,  carrying  various  implements  of  toil, 
with  the  shrunken  form  and  meanly  contracted  features 
of  a miser  clutching  money  bags. 

As  Nathan  turned  upon  David  with  his  sternly 
accusing  ‘ thou  art  the  man,’  so  W atts,  in  the  picture 
Can  these  Bones  live  ? tells  us,  his  countrymen,  that 
Mammon  Worship  prevails  amongst  us  and  that  we 
are  becoming  a prey  to  its  inevitable  ills.  A heavy 


MAMMON 


1 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY  103 

pall  of  gold  has  weighed  down  some  of  the  branches 
of  England’s  oak,  on  the  stem  of  which  the  words 
‘Alfred  me  planted’  are  well-nigh  effaced.  Beneath 
the  pall  are  human  skeletons  ; and  the  drunkard’s  cup, 
the  gambler’s  dice,  and  the  assassin’s  knife,  witness  to 
the  evils  that  have  accompanied  Mammon  Worship, 
dragged  men  down  to  death,  and  threatened  the  nation 
with  decay ; v/hile  implements  of  labour  lie  broken 
and  disused.  Such,  with  but  little  variation  of  phrase, 
is  the  painter’s  own  explanation  of  this  picture.  Its 
meaning  is  emphasised  by  a cloud  of  ominous  blackness, 
which  hangs,  another  pall,  over  a dreary,  far-spreading 
waste.  One  can  almost  hear  the  prophet-painter  say- 
ing : ‘ He  that  hath  eyes  to  see,  let  him  see ' ; just  as 
in  Jonah  he  almost  forces  us  to  hear  denunciation. 
The  prophet’s  form  is  contorted  by  the  fierceness  with 
which  he  delivers  his  message.  On  the  wall  behind 
him  are  sculptures,  Babylonian  in  form,  but  in  meaning 
applicable  to  our  own  day ; for  they  depict  such  evils 
as  those  rebuked  by  the  pictures  we  have  just  con- 
sidered. 

Yet  though  the  beasts  be  still  slaying  men,  men  are 
also  slaying  beasts.  Evolution  means  advance.  At  least, 
such  was  Watts’s  belief.  We  find  it  in  his  picture 
Trogress,  where  from  a blaze  of  light  comes  a bowman 
riding  his  steed  through  the  air.  On  the  ground 


104  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

beneath  are  four  men ; one  of  them  fails  to  see  the 
oncoming  horseman  because  he  is  poring  by  feeble 
candle-light  over  the  letter  that  kills ; another,  because 
he  is  grubbing  for  gold  in  a muck-heap ; a third, 
because  he  is  asleep  ; but  a fourth  looks  up  and  sees 
the  rider  and  the  light  of  a better  day  of  which  he  is 
the  herald.  The  beasts  will  perish.  The  dry  bones 
will  live. 

In  the  pictures  already  considered  in  this  chapter, 
humanity  is  regarded  in  the  mass ; it  is  looked  upon, 
as  far  as  a man  can  so  look  upon  it,  from  the  outside. 
It  is  the  race,  not  the  individual,  whose  fortunes  we 
have  followed.  We  have  now  to  see  humanity  from 
within,  to  have  laid  bare  to  us  the  inner  life  of  men 
and  women  in  all  ways  like  ourselves.  That  we  may 
have  to  do  with  legend  as  well  as  fact  is  of  no  moment. 
The  legends  are  the  outcome  of  actual  human  ex- 
perience. They  have  truth  if  not  reality,  a distinction 
drawn  by  Watts  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made. 

The  tragedy  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  has  been  a 
theme  for  many  a painter  as  well  as  for  many  poets. 
It  comes  pictorially  to  us  all  as  we  read  of  it ; it  v/as 
inevitable  that  the  painters  should  seek  to  picture  it. 
Masaccio,  one  of  the  founders  of  modern  realism,  did 
so  with  great  power.  Art  has  never  perhaps  more 


EVE  TEMPTED 


I 


I. 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


105 

surely  accomplished  its  end  than  in  his  fresco  at 
Florence  of  Adam  and  Eve  passing  out  through  the 
portal  of  the  garden  into  the  wilderness,  hastening 
from  a condemnation  they  cannot  escape,  wailing  as 
they  go ; while  the  angel  with  drawn  sword,  both  bids 
them  forth  and  bars  the  possibility  of  return.  Watts 
has  interpreted  the  tragedy  with  great  intensity.  In  a 
series  of  paintings  he  has  shown  the  Creation  and  the 
Temptation  of  Eve,  the  Denunciation  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  and  the  Repentance  of  Eve.  In  one  picture. 
The  "Birth  of  Eve^  Adam  lies  asleep  upon  the  ground ; 
Eve  rises,  fully  formed,  from  his  side,  and,  in  a very 
swirl,  angels  sweep  upward,  with  outstretched  arms,  to 
acclaim  the  wonder  of  the  creative  act  in  which  they 
have  taken  part.  In  The  Creation  of  Eve,  she  is 
taking  form  in  a flood  of  descending  light,  in  which 
she  seems  half-consciously,  with  head  thrown  back,  to 
bathe  herself ; and  around  her  is  a mist  of  illumined 
vapour,  and  of  leaves  and  flowers  and  birds.  Then 
comes  the  temptation  ; her  form  is  half  hidden,  her 
face  wholly  hidden,  amid  foliage,  flowers  and  fruit ; a 
panther  rolls  fawningly  at  her  feet ; she  has  wholly 
yielded  to  the  pleasures, of  sense,  and  the  inevitable 
doom  is  coming  upon  her.  Fallen,  she  drags  Adam 
down  with  her,  and  so  we  see  them  both  * crouching 
at  the  foot  of  a tree ; above,  God  the  F ather,  with 


io6  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


outstretched  arms  in  the  act  or  denunciation/  and 
angels,  not  now  rejoicing,  as  at  the  birth  of  Eve,  but 
joining  in  the  condemnation.  Then,  again,  we  see 
Eve,  leaning  against  a tree,  her  back  turned  towards 
us,  not  now  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  sense — for  all 
the  luxuriance  of  fruit  and  flower  has  gone,  and  the 
very  leaves  are  withered  and  tortured  by  a bitter  blast 
— but  wrung,  as  her  whole  frame  shows,  with  the 
agony  of  remorse. 

Without  comment  yet,  let  us  pass  to  the  second 
great  tragedy  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  for  Watts  also 
retold  in  picture  the  story  of  Cain.  In  The  T)eath  of 
Abel^  Cain  stands  over  the  body  of  his  murdered 
brother — stands,  but  leans  as  if  to  fall,  covering  his 
head  with  his  arms ; for  a stream  of  avenging  fire 
comes  down  upon  him  from  heaven,  and  angels  by 
repellant  gestures — so  vivid  that  we  almost  think  we 
also  hear  their  stern  denunciation — bring  home  to  him 
the  meaning  of  his  deed  and  the  condemnation  of  God. 
Watts  took  the  story  of  Eve  no  further  than  her  re- 
pentance ; and  it  was  enough  ; for  repentance  means 
that  the  higher  nature  has  again  made  good  its  claim. 
He  pictured  also  the  repentance  of  Cain,  the  moment 
of  his  death,  and  the  removal  of  his  curse.  It  will 
suffice  to  quote  Wattses  own  description  of  the  picture  : 

‘ The  first  murderer  is  here  shown  as  an  aged  pilgrim. 


EVE  REPENTANT 


1 


.*  1 
I 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


107 


broken  by  his  long  journey.  He  has  returned  to  die 
upon  AbePs  altar,  and  as  he  sinks  upon  it,  in  repent- 
ance and  contrition,  the  black  cloud  of  his  curse  is 
removed  from  him  by  his  accompanying  angel,  and  the 
light  of  heaven  once  more  shines  upon  him.’ 

We  pause,  as  in  a previous  instance,  to  compare  the 
treatment  of  these  subjects  by  Watts  with  that  of 
Blake.  There  is  terrible  power  in  Blake’s  rendering 
of  these  stories  from  the  Book  of  Genesis.  He  does 
not  shrink  from  giving  the  Spirit  of  Evil  his  temporary 
victory.  In  the  pictures  of  Adam  and  Eve  it  is  the 
serpent  that  we  chiefly  remember  as  we  think  of  them. 
He  rises  above  Eve  at  her  creation  ; he  gives  her  the 
apple  from  his  own  mouth  ; when  he  has  triumphed, 
he  lies  upon  her  body  in  horrible  content.  The  heart 
sickens  at  the  loathsomeness. 

In  Blake’s  pictures  we  see  the  tragedy  from  the 
outside.  We  are  spectators  of  a far-off,  but  undivine 
event.  W atts’s  Eve  is  a woman  actually  before  us  ; 
and  the  heart  yearns  for  her,  as  it  would  yearn  for  a 
living  person  suffering  the  bitter  agony  of  remorse. 
Sometimes  Blake  strikes  a more  personal  note.  One 
of  his  drawings  shows  Cain,  who  has  dug  a grave  in 
which  to  bury  the  body  of  Abel.  Before  his  gruesome 
task  is  completed  his  parents  have  come  upon  him. 
Eve  throws  herself  upon  the  body  of  her  murdered 


io8  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


son.  Cain  turns  to  flee.  Adam  casts  upon  him  a look 
in  which  are  mingled  horror,  wonder,  and,  we  think, 
understanding.  He  himself  has  sinned.  The  murder 
of  Abel  is  in  part  his  own  doing. 

In  respect  of  its  cold,  deliberate  selfishness,  the 
wrong  done  by  Jacob  to  Esau  was  worse  than  the 
murder  of  Abel  by  Cain.  The  present  writer  is  one 
of  those  who  do  not  look  round  to  see  who  is  near 
before  saying  that  ail  through  the  birthright  and  bless- 
ing transactions  they  think  better  of  Esau  than  of 
Jacob.  We  must,  of  course,  shake  our  heads ‘at  Esau 
for  selling  his  birthright  for  a mess  of  pottage ; but  it 
was  a deeper  wrong  for  the  younger  brother  to  take  it 
from  him  at  the  price,  and  to  supplant  him  by  deception 
and  lying.  No  one  who  had  thus  outwitted  Jacob — 
if  such  an  achievement  is  even  to  be  deemed  possible 
— would  ever  have  been  forgiven  ; but  Esau  forgave 
Jacob.  Perhaps  it  was  his  easy-going  disposition  that 
made  this  possible  for  him.  Anyhow  he  did  it ; and 
many  of  us,  probably,  only  hope  we  could  have  done 
the  same  thing  in  the  same  circumstances.  Watts 
seems  to  have  admired  Esau.  He  painted  him  as  a 
powerfully  built,  sun-browned  herdsman,  leaning  on  his 
spear  ; and  he  painted  that  memorable  meeting,  when 
the  supplantcr  cringingly  sought  his  brother’s  favour, 
‘and  Esau  ran  to  meet  him,  and  embraced  him,  and 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY  109 

fell  on  his  nock,  and  kis.scd  him  : and  they  wept. 
Jacob,  in  the  picture,  is  puny  and  pale  ; he  is  trembling 
and  his  legs  are  ready  to  fail  under  him  ; his  face  wears 
an  abject  expression.  Is  it  prejudice  that  makes  one 
read  insincerity  into  it  ? Great,  burly,  bronzed  Esau, 
comes  to  him  with  big  strides  ; and  it  seems  as  if  his 
hands,  laid  upon  Jacob’s  shoulders,  would  be  enough 
to  weigh  the  supplanter  to  the  ground.  Between  the 
two,  in  the  middle  distance,  we  see  one  of  Jacob’s 
wives,  with  a child  in  her  arms  ; and  we  might  read 
into  her  expression  something  not  far  removed  from 
contempt  at  the  sorry  figure  her  husband  is  cutting. 
But,  in  the  end,  while  looking  at  this  picture,  we  think 
of  little  but  Esau’s  forgiveness ; he  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  unstrained  quality  of  mercy. 

Once  again  Watts  retold  a biblical  story  of  sin  and 
repentance.  This  time  it  is  the  Prodigal  son  we  see, 
in  two  pictures.  In  one  of  them  he  is  seated  on  the 
ground,  in  ragged  garments  and  bare-footed,  with  a 
sleeping  hog  close  by  him.  Every  feature  shows  the 
bitterness  of  his  thoughts.  He  has  squandered  his  in- 
heritance only  in  the  end  to  be  glad  to  share  the  food 
of  the  unclean  beasts  he  has  been  set  to  keep.  Hope 
of  forgiveness  he  has  none,  otherwise  his  face  would  not 
be  wholly  dark.  It  is  merely  to  escape  from  abject 
misery,  not  that  he  thinks  life  can  ever  again  be  what 


no  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


it  should  have  been,  that  he  permits  himself  to  recollect 
that  the  servants  in  his  father’s  house  have  bread 
enough  and  to  spare  while  he  is  perishing  with  hunger. 
In  the  other  picture  he  is  looking  sadly,  hopelessly, 
towards  home.  We  know  who  is  looking  out  there, 
and  could  almost  wish  to  tell  the  Prodigal  how  ex- 
haustless is  a father’s  love. 

There  is  no  more  awful  story  of  sin  and  punishment 
than  that  which  Dante  tells  of  Paolo  and  F rancesca  da 
Rimini,  who,  sinning  together,  and  slain  in  their  sin, 
had  no  chance  of  repentance,  and,  therefore,  of  salva- 
tion. Their  love  uniting  them  even  in  hell,  together 
they  were  swept  along  by  the  burning  blast ; the  bitterest 
of  all  their  bitter  pangs  being  surely  the  knowledge 
that  each  had  wrought  the  other’s  ruin.  When  Dante 
had  imagined  the  sad  wailing  uttered  by  each  of  them, 
after  F rancesca  had  told  him  their  story,  well  might  he 
imagine  further  that,  when  he  had  heard  the  wail,  he 
swooned  away.  Is  it  any  less  harrowing  to  look  at 
Watts’s  picture  of  Paolo  and  Francesca  than  to  read 
Dante’s  story  ? Standing  before  it  one  has  felt  that 
though  a Dante  in  the  Middle  Ages  might  be  com- 
pelled to  imagine  such  a doom,  a Watts,  in  this  later 
day,  ought  not  perhaps  to  have  pictured  it.  Such  a 
feeling  is  a tribute  to  the  power  of  his  work.  We  can 
only  not  feel  it  to  be  intolerable  by  again  distinguishing 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


1 1 1 


between  truth  and  reality.  It  warns  us  that  a crueller 
fate  than  to  fall  oneself  is,  in  falling,  to  have  dragged 
a loved  one  down.  That  even  such  a fate  can  be 
absolute,  that  remorse  will  never  lead  to  repentance, 
and  repentance  to  redemption,  surely  Dante’s  swoon, 
and  the  pity  that  mere  picture  and  story  arouse  in  us, 
unerringly  deny. 

We  pass  now  from  these  vividly  imagined  tragedies 
of  the  human  soul.  Watts  would  have  fallen  below 
the  demands  of  a poet  painter’s  calling  had  he  left 
these  awful  regions  unexplored.  Aeschylus  had  to 
write  the  Oresteia,  Shakespeare  had  to  write  Macbeth^ 
that  tragedy  of  mutual  sin  driving  husband  and  wife 
each,  in  the  end,  to  a lonely  and  unlamented  death. 
Dante  Rossetti’s  sonnet  and  drawing,  Foundy  torture  us 
through  the  realisation  of  another  downfall  of  the  soul 
from  which  we  hope  rather  than  see  the  possibility  of 
any  uprising.  Only  by  the  most  solemn  words  can  our 
sense  of  the  awful  clearness  of  poet  and  painter’s 
vision  be  expressed  : ‘Fear  not  them  which  kill  the 
body  only,  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  soul : but  rather 
fear  him  which  is  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body 
in  hell.’ 

We  pass  out  from  darkness  into  shade  when  we 
leave  sin  and  retribution  to  come  to  sorrow.  There  is, 
however,  a debatable  ground  between  the  two.  There 


2 GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


are  sorrows  that  come  from  some  neglect,  or  thought- 
less disobedience ; from  lapses  followed  by  immediate 
recovery;  and  yet  deep  loss  has  been  sustained.  Such 
was  the  legendary  fate  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice, 
whose  pitiful  story  Watts  made  the  subject  of  two 
pictures.  Orpheus  followed  his  lost  wife  into  the 
underworld,  and  so  charmed  its  ruler.  Hades,  by  his 
music,  as  to  obtain  consent  to  take  her  back  to  the 
world  above.  One  condition  only  was  imposed  : that 
he  should  not  turn  to  look  at  her  until  they  had  passed 
the  boundary  between  the  two  realms.  * They  had  just 
reached  the  fateful  point,  but  had  not  passed  it,  when 
Orpheus,  unable  longer  to  restrain  his  desire  to  be  sure 
that  Eurydice  was  following  him,  turned  to  look,  and 
at  once  she  was  lost  to  him,  fading  away  into  the  dark- 
ness. It  was  this  moment  that  Watts  chose  for  his 
pictures.  The  pallor  and  the  powerlessness  of  death 
have  come  upon  Eurydice ; Orpheus  strives  to  hold 
her,  but  we  can  see  that  his  effort  must  be  in  vain. 
Another  moment,  and  he  will  be  left  alone  with  his 
sorrow  and  his  self-reproach.  He  has  mistrusted  the 
king  of  the  underworld,  and  this  is  the  direful  penalty. 

Of  similar,  though  perhaps  deeper  import,  is  the 
story  of  Psyche.  Her  lover,  Cupid,  who  came  to  her 
at  night,  and  left  her  in  the  day,  forbade  her  to  look 
upon  him  or  to  ask  who  he  was.  Her  jealous  sisters 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 


AN  EPIC  OF  HUMANITY 


113 

told  her  that  if  she  could  see  this  nightly  visitor  she 
would  find  him  to  be  some  dreadful  rhonster  ; so,  one 
night,  she  took  a lamp  and  looked  upon  him,  and  was 
amazed  at  his  beauty.  But  a drop  of  oil  from  the 
lamp  fell  upon  him ; he  awoke,  and  finding  that 
Psyche  had  distrusted  him,  left  her.  Watts,  in  his 
picture,  shows  her  standing  before  a couch  ; on  the 
floor  is  an  overturned  lamp,  still  smoking.  There  lie 
also  two  feathers  from  Lovers  plumage,  at  which  Psyche 
sadly  gazes.  Her  flesh  is  pallid ; the  hues  of  every- 
thing we  see  about  her  are  dimmed  in  sympathy  with 
her  sadness.  The  shade  is  near  to  darkness  here.  Of 
all  that  Psyche — the  human  soul — had  to  pass  through, 
before  love  and  happiness  could  return  to  her,  this  is 
not  the  place  to  tell. 

Not  for  any  fault  or  failing  of  her  own  was 
Ariadne,  daughter  of  Minos,  King  of  Crete,  deserted 
in  the  Isle  of  Naxos  by  the  Greek  hero  Theseus. 
W atts  shows  her,  seated  upon  the  shore,  sadly  watch- 
ing the  ship  of  Theseus  growing  less  and  less  in  the 
distance.  There  are  two  such  pictures.  In  one  of 
them,  Ariadne  in  Naxos,  mentioned  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  there  are  two  leopards  beside  her  ; and  an 
attendant  maiden  seeks  to  rouse  her  from  her  listless- 
ness, pointing  to  the  land  behind,  where  a growing 
clamour  tells  of  the  approach  of  Bacchus  and  his  rout. 


I 


1 14  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

We  do  not  feel  the  less  the  human  pathos  of  the  story 
— it  is  the  ‘ Never  morning  wore  to  evening  but  some 
heart  did  break’  of  the  English  poet — because  we 
know  it  to  be  a nature-myth,  symbolising  the  earth 
robbed  of  joy  and  beauty  in  the  winter,  to  have  them 
both  restored  in  the  springtime. 

That  sad  spectacle,  which  the  King  in  Hamlet^ 
smitten  with  remorse  and  fear,  describes  as  ‘Poor 
Ophelia,  divided  from  herself  and  her  fair  judgment,’ 
with  its  sequel  of  untimely  death,  is  the  subject  of 
another  of  Watts’s  pictures.  Ophelia  has  come  to  the 
willow  growing  aslant  the  brook,  and  lies  upon  it.  So 
expressionless  is  her  down-turned  face,  that  we  can 
hardly  say  she  is  looking  at  the  water  beneath.  She 
has  lost  touch  with  the  world  outside,  and  the  world 
within  is  all  confused.  For  such  disease  there  is  but 
one  remedy,  but  one  allaying  of  such  a fever  : the 
peaceful  sleep  of  death. 

Is  the  reader  by  this  time  ready  to  agree  with 
M.  de  la  Sizeranne  ? Let  him  turn  to  the  reproduc- 
tion of  Sir  Galahad.  We  must  not  forget  the  bright- 
ness ; for  our  next  chapter  will  keep  us  still  in  the 
shade ; but  for  a time  only  : we  shall  pass  through  it 
to  the  light  as  we  follow  the  human  epic  to  its  close. 


ARIADNE  IN  NAXOS 


VI 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND 
JUDGMENT 

We  can  ask  about  any  seer,  prophet  or  poet,  who 
offers  to  explain  life  to  us,  no  more  searching  question 
than  what  he  would  have  us  think  of  death.  For, 
until,  with  or  without  help,  we  have  faced  and  answered 
this  question  for  ourselves,  we  have  not  properly  begun 
to  live. 

There  are  few  stranger  contrasts  in  life  than  that 
between  the  keen  suffering  of  those  who  know  the 
difference  that  death  has  wrought  for  all  their  after 
years,  and  the  light-heartedness  of  the  child  from 
whom  the  meaning  of  death,  as  yet,  is  mercifully 
hidden.  The  contrast  at  first  brings  pain  ; in  time  it 
brings  relief.  We  have  already  seen  the  child  playing 
with  the  shroud-like  drapery  in  The  Court  of  Death 
and  doing  no  homage  to  the  monarch  to  whom  all 
must  submit  themselves ; and  we  have  thought  of  him 
as  unconsciously  bidding  us  not  to  be  fearful  even  in 
liS 


i6  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


that  dark  presence.  And  is  not  this  true  to  ex- 
perience ? 

But  even  though  death,  like  danger  which  is  the 
shadow  of  death,  should  not  be  feared,  it  must  still  be 
faced ; and  when  we  do  face  and  question  it,  we  find 
that,  so  far  from  being  the  enemy  of  life,  it  is  from 
death  that  life  derives  all  in  it  that  is  worth  the  having. 
When  we  strive  v/ith  another  with  the  aim  of  increas- 
ing our  own  skill  or  strength,  is  our  opponent  not  our 
friend  ? So  it  is  with  life  and  death.  Life  is  one 
long  contest  with  death,  and  can  no  more  be  con- 
ceived apart  from  death  than  a game  of  chess  with 
but  one  player.  Think  of  the  intense  significance  of 
religion,  having  postulated  a deathless  God,  finding 
herself  under  the  necessity  of  making  him  for  a space 
both  human  and  mortal,  so  that,  though  the  high 
priest  is  passed  into  the  heavens,  he  yet  can  be  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  human  infirmities ! It  is  not  for 
us,  here,  to  try  how  far  our  plummet-line  can  sound 
the  mysterious  depths  of  being ; but  we  are  put  to 
solemn  questioning  by  the  poet-painter  who  has  painted 
so  many  pictures  that  have  life  and  death  for  their 
theme. 

Even  where  death  is  not  named  we  shall  find  that 
it  is  implied.  There  is  no  mention  of  it  in  Love  and 
Life,  Yet  it  is  there,  lurking  in  the  precipices  from 


LOVE  AND  LIFE 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  117 

the  dangerous  edge  of  which  Love  is  gently  leading 
Life.  When  Life  is  in  danger  then  comes  Love’s 
opportunity.  Life  without  danger,  without  suffering, 
without  death,  would  be,  so  far  as  wt  have  any  power 
to  imagine  it,  life  without  love.  In  the  heaven  of  the 
Apocalypse  the  rejoicing  and  thanksgiving  are  for 
deliverance  from  sin  and  sorrow,  remembered  though 
for  ever  past,  wrought  by  love  that  did  not  shrink  from 
death.  It  is  not  the  Love  of  Love  and  Life  that,  in 
the  companion  picture,  seeks  to  bar  Death’s  entry  into 
the  house  of  Life.  He  who  would,  but  cannot,  stop 
the  inevitable  passage  of  the  solemn,  grey-robed  figure, 
is  a lesser,  a less  noble.  Love.  We  need  to  say  that 
Love  has  two  natures,  a higher  and  a lower  ; and  that 
the  lower  nature  must  serve,  and  sacrifice  itself  for,  the 
higher.  When  Death  has  passed.  Love  will  find 
that  he  has  been  raised,  not  crushed  to  the  ground. 
Death  can  only  cast  a shadow  on  Love ; when  the 
shadow  has  passed  the  light  will  still  be  there,  only 
more  intense  than  before. 

It  is  thus  that  our  poet-painter  asks  us  to  think  of 
death.  He  will  not  have  it  thought  of  otherwise  than 
as  gentle,  like  a woman  easing  pain,  or  a nurse  putting 
the  children  to  sleep.  It  has  been  urged  against  him 
that  he  makes  death  more  to  be  desired  than  life. 
Even  in  the  closing  of  life  before  it  has  well  begun  he 


ii8  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


sees  but  Death  crowning  Innocence.  The  thought  is 
perhaps  not  a profound  one.  It  seems,  indeed,  not 
wholly  consistent  with  other  things  the  seer  has  seen 
and  reported.  It  is  perhaps  a concession ; for  how 
often  has  a mother  found  comfort  in  the  thought  that 
the  child  it  has  been  so  hard  to  lose  is  safe  from  evil 
and  the  ills  of  life.  If  we  will  we  may  ask  how  it  can 
be  known  that  after  life’s  fitful  fever  men  sleep  well. 
We  may  be  right,  though  not  always  for  the  right 
reasons,  in  rejecting  the  thought  that  death,  whenever 
it  comes,  is  an  untimely  evil,  subserving  no  good  end. 
The  love  that  finds  consolation  in  thinking  the  child 
is  safe  could  not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  have  been  called 
forth  but  for  the  need  of  watchfulness  and  care — again  : 
it  is  death  that  makes  love  possible  and  so  gives  life  its 
supreme  worth. 

Among  the  most  impressive  of  Watts’s  pictures  are 
The  Messenger  and  the  Court  of  Death.  As  messenger. 
Death  is  a woman  of  stately  mien,  who  holds  an 
infant  on  one  arm,  and  stretching  out  the  other,  touches 
gently  with  her  finger,  as  if  she  were  bidding  the  pulsa- 
tion of  life  to  cease,  the  wrist  of  an  aged  man,  who  has 
sunk  back  in  his  chair.  At  his  feet  lie  the  symbols 
of  human  work — of  the  arts  that  Prometheus  taught 
to  mortals — a globe,  a violin,  a palette,  a book,  a 
hammer.  Light,  the  light  of  this  life,  falls  upon  the 


TIME,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  1 19 

dying  man  and  his  surroundings  ; the  messenger  stands 
in  the  shade  ; behind  her  is  blue-black  night.  Yet  so 
gentle  is  her  mien  that  none  would  fear  to  obey  her 
summons  and  follow  her  out  into  the  dark.  No  less 
gentle,  in  the  second  picture,  seems  the  dark  angel- 
queen  before  whose  throne  the  woman  and  the  soldier 
in  their  prime,  the  woman  and  the  monarch  old  in 
years,  the  beggar  leaning  on  his  crutch,  and  even  the 
strong  lion,  have  come  to  do  homage ; and  in  whose 
lap  a new-born  infant  lies.  It  seems  as  if  without  re- 
luctance, nay  quite  willingly,  all  these  courtiers  have 
come  to  this  solemn  presence-chamber,  the  young  and 
strong,  as  well  as  the  old  and  feeble.  And  do  we 
not  know  why  ? Life,  we  have  seen,  the  only  life 
worth  having,  the  life  that  rises  to  the  highest  love, 
cannot  dispense  with  death,  not  as  the  mere  end  after 
lapse  of  many  years  ; but  as  the  sacrifice  that  love 
may  need,  even  in  earliest  days.  And  what  is  Death  ? 
No  absolute  monarch,  but  only  a viceroy,  an  angel, 
a messenger ; and  though  Silence  and  Mystery  may 
stand  beside  her,  yet  they  are  but  the  guardians  of 
an  open  portal.  The  light  of  this  world  falls  upon 
those  who  do  homage  to  Death  ; she  and  her  atten- 
dants are  in  the  gloom  ; beyond,  through  the  portal, 
there  is  light  again. 

‘ It  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  but  after  this 


20  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


the  judgment/  This  solemn,  dramatic  statement  was 
translated  by  Watts  into  painting,  and  his  rendering 
of  it  is  to  be  seen  among  the  pictures  that  he  gave 
to  the  nation,  also,  through  his  gift,  in  London’s  great 
cathedral,  and  again  at  Limnerslease.  Time,  in  the 
guise  of  a stalwart  man  in  the  prime  of  life,  carries  in 
one  hand  a scythe,  and  with  the  other  holds  the  hand 
of  Death,  a woman,  pallid  in  hue,  and  robed  in  grey, 
who  looks  sadly  at  the  fading  flowers  in  her  lap.  Be- 
hind them,  in  crimson  garments,  in  one  hand  a pair  of 
balances,  in  the  other  a flaming  sword,  follows  Judg- 
ment, whose  face  is  hidden  from  us  by  his  outstretched 
arm.  With  this  picture  should  be  grouped — in 
thought — four  others,  of  the  horsemen  who  appeared 
on  the  opening  of  the  seals  in  the  Revelation  ; and 
the  significance  ot  them  all  will  be  deepened  if  we 
think  also  of  T^he  Dweller  in  the  Innermost,  Conscience, 
upon  whose  knee  lies  a trumpet,  whose  warning  if  we 
will  not  hear  we  must  bear  the  sting  of  the  arrows  that 
lie  beside  it. 

Now,  with  all  these  in  our  mind,  let  us  turn  to  still 
another  ; Sic  transit  Gloria  Mundi — So  passeth  the 
glory  of  this  world.  Here,  in  part  at  least,  is  not 
imaginative  drama,  but  mere  fact ; a pall  that  sinks  and 
rises  along  a human  body  lying  beneath  it.  We  are 
in  the  presence  of  death,  that  awfully  silent  presence, . 


LOVE  IRIUMPIIANT 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  121 

just  as  it  is  known  to  us.  But  to  this  there  are  imagina- 
tive additions.  On  the  ground  before  the  bier  lie  an 
ermine  garment,  gold  vessels,  a lute,  a book,  a spear, 
armour,  a palmer’s  cloak,  a peacock’s  feather  Wealth, 
song,  learning,  war,  devotion — all  these,  as  this  world 
knows  them,  have  no  longer  any  meaning  for  the  dead. 
There  is  more.  A voice  is  given  to  the  dead,  who 
passes  judgment  on  himself.  On  a curtain  behind  the 
bier  are  written  these  brief  sentences,  of  shortest  words, 
but  of  deepest  import;  What  I spent  I had — What  I 
saved  1 lost — What  I gave  I have.  This  then  is  what 
Judgment  will  weigh  in  his  balances.  The  measure 
of  what  men  spend  and  save  is  the  measure  of  their 
selfishness ; the  measure  of  what  they  give  is  the 
measure  of  their  love.  Now  let  us  pass  to  another 
picture.  Three  figures  lie  prostrate  on  the  ground. 
We  know  them  well.  One  of  them  is  Time.  He 
has  lost  his  ruddy  hue,  and  his  scythe  is  broken. 
Time  is  dead.  The  second  figure  is  Death  ; the  faded 
flowers  have  fallen  from  her  lap.  Death  is  no  more. 
Beyond  Death  we  see  a crimson  robe.  Judgment  is 
at  an  end.  But  above  these  prostrate  forms  another 
springs  erect,  raises  his  arms,  spreads  out  his  wings  for 
flight ; a blaze  of  light  shines  down  upon  his  upturned 
face.  Him  also  we  know.  We  have  seen  him  lead- 
ing Life  up  to  the  sunlit  mount.  It  is  Love,  who  has 


22  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


triumphed  over  Time  and  Death  and  Judgment — 
W hat  1 gave  I have. 

We  do  not  know  when  first  men  thought  there 
would  be  judgment  after  death.  Many  centuries  ago, 
before  the  art  of  Greece  had  arisen,  Watts  had  his 
predecessors  who  worked  in  the  tombs  and  temples  of 
Egypt,  and  carved  and  painted  on  their  walls  the  judg- 
ment of  the  soul  by  Osiris.  There  also  we  see  the 
balances ; there,  if  not  the  flaming  sword,  yet  the 
monster  who  will  hound  the  guilty  soul  to  torment. 
There  also,  it  is  truth,  and  justice  between  man  and  his 
fellows,  that  will  avail  before  the  judge.  ‘ I have  not 
done  iniquity,  I have  not  done  violence  to  any  man,  I 
have  not  made  light  the  bushel,  I have  not  stolen  the 
things  which  belong  to  God,  I have  not  set  my  mouth 
in  motion  against  any  man,  I have  not  made  another 
person  to  weep  ’ ; such  were  the  things  a man  must  be 
able  truthfully  to  say,  unless  his  soul,  being  weighed  in 
the  balances,  were  to  be  found  wanting. 

There  is  an  Egyptian  solemnity  in  the  very  appear- 
ance of  the  pictures  in  the  Watts  room  at  the  Millbank 
Gallery.  It  is  like  passing  from  the  busy  street  into 
the  quiet  of  a temple  when  we  leave  the  miscellaneous 
contents  of  the  other  rooms  and  enter  this  one.  So 
slow  are  the  changes  that  come  about  in  human  thought 
that  Watts  has  only  deepened  the  meaning  of  some  of 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  123 

the  oldest  forms  of  civilised  art.  But  he  has  deepened 
their  meaning  ; and  he  has  varied  the  emphasis. 

The  weakness  of  threats  of  future  judgment — when 
applied  by  parents  to  children  or  by  preachers  to  men 
and  women — is  that  they  tend  to  procrastination,  and 
establish  only  an  arbitrary,  external  connexion  between 
wrong-doing  and  punishment.  The  Egyptian  confes- 
sion, it  will  have  been  observed,  is  negative  in  form. 
Probably  the  young  man  who  turned  away  from  Chris» 
could  have  honestly  subscribed  to  every  item  in  it. 
Watts  deepened  the  meaning  of  old  forms  of  art  when 
he  made,  not  good  deeds,  or  the  absence  of  misdeeds — 
both  of  which,  up  to  a certain  standard,  are  compatible 
with  selfishness — but  love,  the  test  in  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. This  was  the  test  applied  to  the  rich  young 
man ; who  wished  to  know  what  he  must  do  that  ht 
might  inherit  eternal  life.  The  commandments  he  had 
kept ; but  did  he  love  ? Could  he  sell  all  he  had  to  give 
to  the  poor,  and  become  a follower  of  him  who,  for 
love’s  sake,  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head  ? We  know 
his  answer ; and  Watts  has  made  more  vivid  to  us  his 
great  refusal.  The  thought  in  Watts’s  pictures  is 
deeper  than  the  thought  in  the  art  of  Egypt  and  of 
Greece  because  since  their  day  religion  itself  has  been 
deepened ; in  the  same  way  as — I quote  a Positivist 
writer,  Frederic  Harrison — <a  medigeval  church, 
however  much  it  lacked  the  austere  simplicity  and  fault- 


124  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

less  symmetry  of  a Greek  temple,  was  as  much  deeper 
and  more  full  in  its  solemnity  and  power,  as  the 
Catholic  mythology  was  deeper  and  nobler  than  the 
classical  mythology/ 

This  deepening  of  the  thought  has  also  meant  what 
has  been  called  above  a change  of  emphasis.  Watts’s 
vision  of  judgment  does  not  let  us  dwell  upon  the 
future.  We  are  not  allowed  to  ask  chiefly  how  we 
shall  fare  in  the  hereafter.  If  love  be  the  test  we 
cannot  meet  the  test  by  regulating  our  conduct  now 
with  a view  to  future  happiness.  Though  a man  give 
his  body  to  be  burned  and  his  goods  to  feed  the  poor 
and  have  not  love  it  profiteth  him  nothing.  The 
judgment  is  present,  not  future.  We  are  now  like 
the  monsters  of  The  Minotaur^  Mammon^  or  Cruel 
y engeance^  or  the  cringing  miser  of  Labour  and  Greedy 
or  the  frightened  child  of  Love  and  Death ; or  wc 
are  now  like  Sir  Galahad,  or  the  stalwart  labourer 
going  out  to  his  work,  or  the  helpful  ministrant  of  Love 
and  Life,  Not  merely  hereafter,  but  now,  do  we  lose 
what  we  save,  and  have  what  we  give.  It  is  not  only 
that  things  being  what  they  are,  their  consequences,  in 
the  near  or  distant  future,  will  be  what  they  will  be. 
The  consequences  now  are  what  they  are ; every  sort 
of  man  has  at  once  his  reward.  This  is  what  these 
pictures  mean  when  we  take  them  together. 

W e must  note  again  the  deeply  significant  reticence 


PRAYER 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  125 

in  the  religious  art  of  Watts,  which  has  been  construed, 
as  we  have  seen,  into  uncertainty  at  least.  He  shrinks 
from  giving  form  to  the  Deity  whose  immanence  in, 
and  control  of,  all  things,  is  none  the  less  always  implied. 
The  Sower  of  the  Systems  is  but  a draped  figure  of 
whom  we  only  see  the  hand  that  casts  the  star-seed. 
The  nearest  approach  to  personification  of  the  Deity, 
besides  this  one,  is  the  strangely  solemn  figure,  in 
whose  lap  is  a star-flecked  sphere,  and  in  whose  hand 
are  measuring-compasses  ; and  who  is  named  The  All 
Pervading,  The  angel  whom  he  calls  The  Dweller  in 
the  Innermost^  who  sits  within  an  oval  formed  of  vibrat- 
ing rings  of  light,  in  whose  hand,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  the  warning  trumpet,  and  laid  across  whose 
knee  are  the  arrows  of  remorse,  the  sting  of  which 
must  be  felt  by  those  who  pay  no  heed  to  the  trumpet- 
call — this  angel.  Conscience,  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  which  is  the  magnetic  needle  of  our  spiritual 
nature,  seems  almost  to  reveal  the  God  whose  minister 
she  is.  The  feeling  of  an  unseen  Presence  is  awakened 
in  us,  and  certain  belief  in  it  emphatically  proclaimed, 
by  the  picture  Ti'ayer,  which  is  but  a young  girl,  kneel- 
ing at  a little  table  with  her  book  of  prayers  open  before 
her.  Unbidden,  come  to  us  Tennyson’s  words 

Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit 
can  meet — 

Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet. 


126  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

To  give  form  to  Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  would  be  to  set  Him  apart  from 
us,  to  make  a mere  ruler  or  teacher,  king  or  judge,  of 
Him  to  whom  our  relation  is  infinitely  closer  than  that 
of  a child  to  its  father.  It  is  thus  that  one  interprets 
Watts’s  reticence.  Here  again  we  note  a difference 
between  Watts  and  Blake,  who  often  represents  the 
Deity,  in  the  traditional  way,  as  an  aged  man  of  vener- 
able appearance. 

W atts  was  not  an  agnostic  ; unless  we  only  mean  by 
that  word  that  we  can  know  but  in  part  Him  by 
whom  we  are  fully  known.  We  know  that  there  are 
depths  and  heights  in  our  own  nature  that  we  cannot 
explore.  The  finite  passes  into  the  infinite ; in  our 
highest  thoughts  and  purest  emotions  we  are  in  touch 
with  God.  Dante  could  find  no  words  to  describe 
the  marvels  that  he  saw  within  the  light  which  was  the 
revelation  of  God  to  him,  and  Tennyson  catches  some- 
thing of  Dante’s  intensity  in  the  closing  lines  of  The 
Vision  of  Sin: 

At  last  I heard  a voice  upon  the  slope 
Cry  to  the  summit,  ‘ Is  there  any  hope  ? ’ 

To  which  an  answer  peal’d  from  that  high  land, 

But  in  a tongue  no  man  could  understand  ; 

And  on  the  glimmering  limit  far  withdrawn 
God  made  Himself  an  awful  rose  of  dawn. 


LIFE,  LOVE,  DEATH  AND  JUDGMENT  127 

This  is  the  light  against  which  the  figure  of  Death 
shows  dark  in  Watts’s  picture,  and  into  which  those 
whom  she  has  summoned  to  her  vice-regal  court  will 
enter  when  they  have  passed  through  the  portal  where 
Mystery  and  Silence  stand.  This  is  the  light  that 
shines  upon  Love,  rising  triumphant  over  Time,  Death, 
and  Judgment.  This  is  the  light  that  Dante  saw,  the 
light  of  the  Love 

That  moves  the  sun  in  heaven  and  all  the  stairs. 


FAITH,  HOPE,  AND  CHARITY 

There  are  several  of  Watts’s  pictures,  kindred  in  sub- 
ject to  those  we  have  considered  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  but  more  fitly  taken  by  themselves. 

The  picture  Hope  has  often  been  instanced  as  proof 
that  Watts  was  a gloomy  pessimist.  It  only  would 
furnish  such  proof  if  to  state  facts  were  pessimistic. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  picture  rather  suggests  de- 
spair than  hope.  It  is  very  different  indeed  from  many 
pictures  bearing  the  same  title.  Giotto’s  Hope,  for 
example,  is  so  buoyant  that  she  rises  from  the  ground  ; 
so  bright  that  she  reaches  out  her  hands  to  the  heaven 
at  which  she  looks  with  rapt  expression.  But  there 
is  a hope  that  is  not  like  this  • one  that  is,  indeed, 
closely  akin  to  despair.  Have  we  never  been  saddened 
by  hearing  the  words : ‘ We  can  only  hope’  ? Love, 
or  Life,  or  the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  listening  to  the  wan 
music  made  by  this  last  string  of  the  lyre,  is  the  subject 
of  Watts’s  picture.  "We  have  seen  the  Idle  Child  of 
128 


HOPE 


FAITH,  HOPE,  AND  CHARITY  129 

Fancy  seated  on  the  globe,  in  a picture  almost  garish 
— light-hearted,  we  might  say — in  its  colour.  This  is 
another  spirit  seated  there,  amid  pale  hues  of  greyish 
blue  and  green  and  deadened  gold.  The  eyes  are 
bandaged,  because,  if  the  facts  were  faced,  hope  would 
cease.  This  the  seer  had  seen,  the  man  had  felt ; was 
the  poet-painter  to  ignore  it  ? He  could  not  and  yet 
be  true  to  his  calling.  But,  in  the  sky  above  this 
sorrowing  one,  a star  is  shining.  Has  not  such  a 
picture  its  tenderly  helpful  message  for  all  who  sadly 
nurse  the  hope  that  is  nearest  to  despair  ? The  critic 
who  finds  but  pessimism  in  it  has  once  more  struck  the 
mark’s  true  opposite. 

In  the  traditions  of  religion  and  of  art,  which  are 
based  upon  life,  hope  and  faith  are  often  in  close 
association.  Watts  painted  two  pictures  with  the  title 
Faith,  in  both  of  which  the  figure  representing  faith  is 
almost  identical,  as  it  also  is  in  a chalk  drawing  of  the 
same  subject.  In  both  of  the  pictures  the  colour  is 
bright,  for  faith  is  ever  joyous.  One  of  them  is  in  the 
Modern  Gallery  at  Dublin,  and  here  Faith  is  between 
Hope  and  Charity.  The  painter’s  own  description  of 
the  picture  is  : ‘ Becoming  conscious  of  the  beneficence 
and  loveliness  of  nature,  F aith  washes  her  blood- 
stained foot  in  the  stream  of  truth  and  loosens  her 
sword.’  The  other  painting  is  in  the  national  collec- 

K 


130  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

tion,  and  v/hen  it  was  exhibited  at  the  New  Gallery 
there  was  the  following  note  in  the  catalogue  : ‘ F aith, 
wearied  and  saddened  by  the  result  of  persecution, 
washes  her  blood-stained  feet,  and  recognising  the  in- 
fluence of  love  in  the  perfume  and  beauty  of  flowers, 
and  of  peace  and  joy  in  the  song  of  birds,  feels  that 
the  sword  was  not  the  best  argument,  and  takes  it  off.’ 
Aflixed  to  the  frame  of  the  chalk  drawing — which  is 
in  the  Rochdale  Corporation  Art  Gallery — is  the 
following  note  in  the  painter’s  handwriting  ; ‘ F aith 
awakening  to  the  idea  of  Agreement  on  great  religious 
principles  would  now  leave  the  field  of  strife,  ungirds 
her  sword,  and  washes  her  blood-stained  feet  in  the 
stream  of  truth — G.  F.  Waits J Yet  it  has  been 
possible  for  the  critic  to  say  that  Watts  confuses  faith 
with  creed  and  ignores  the  faith  that  rises  above 
dogma  and  would  have  been  a so  much  worthier 
theme ! W atts’s  expressed  desire  to  avoid  dogma 
should  warn  us  against  thinking  he  could  himself  con- 
fuse it  with  faith.  He  is  insisting  in  these  pictures 
that  the  two  are  far  from  being  identical.  Another 
picture,  Fhe  Spirit  of  Christianity^  is  a clear  refutation 
of  the  critic’s  error,  and  a rebuke  to  the  polemics  of 
the  sects.  A majestic  woman,  seated  above  the  clouds, 
with  the  world  stretching  out  beneath  her  in  wide  ex- 
panse, shelters  under  her  ample  garments  a l^vy  of 


FAITH,  HOPE,  AND  CHARITY  131 

children  who  strive  with  each  other  in  fear  lest  they 
should  be  left  out  in  the  cold.  The  Spirit  of  Christi- 
anity appeals  to  heaven  to  bring  peace  and  goodwill 
instead  of  strife.  The  sub-title  of  this  picture.  Dedi- 
cated to  all  the  Churches^  is  of  obvious  significance. 

Thus  Hope  and  Faith;  now  Charity.  Let  us 
recall  a picture  mentioned  on  an  earlier  page,  Ez>olu~ 
tioa^  where  the  anxious  mother  of  Discord  and  Har- 
mony is  in  doubt  as  to  what  will  be  the  future  of  her 
offspring.  The  picture,  we  recollect,  is  mere  drab 
monotony.  ‘ Flow  horrible  ! ’ was  a lady^s  comment 
on  it  to  the  present  writer.  Watts’s  Charity  is  a rich, 
full  harmony  of  blue  and  green  and  crimson  and  gold. 
He  was  content  to  treat  the  theme  conventionally.  A 
gentle  Madonna  has  a child  in  her  lap,  and  two  others 
standing  at  her  knee.  They  are  happy  in  her  care, 
and  at  peace  with  one  another.  This  is  the  goal  of 
evolution,  this  the  essential  element  • 

And  one  far-off  divine  event 
To  vv'hich  the  whole  creation  moves. 

‘ And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity,  these  three  ; 
but  the  greatest  of  thevse  is  charity.’ 


VIII 


LANDSCAPE 

The  consideration  of  Watts’s  landscape  paintings  has 
been  left  until  now,  because,  as  we  shall  see,  there  will 
be  need  to  refer  to  many  of  the  subject-pictures  with 
which  we  have  become  familiar  in  earlier  pages. 

The  unwisdom  of  assuming  without  inquiry  that 
something  we  do  not  happen  to  have  seen  does  not 
exist,  is  well  exemplified  by  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  who  \ 
says,  in  English  Contemporary  Paintings  that  Watts 
painted  ‘ no  landscapes,  because  landscapes  prove  no- 
thing.’ The  French  writer,  to  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  much  valuable  criticism  of  English  art,  has  man- 
aged in  this  case  to  give  an  absurd  reason  for  something 
that  is  not  true  ; for  W atts  did  paint  landscapes ; and 
he  did  not  paint  portraits  and  subject-pictures  only 
because  he  wished  to  prove  something.  It  is  true  that 
he  did  not  paint  many  landscapes  ; but  to  draw  from 
this  fact  the  conclusion  that  he  thought  lightly  of 
landscape  painting  would  be  as  foolish  as  to  conclude 
that  a landscape  painter,  because  he  painted  few  or  no 
132 


LANDSCAPE 


*33 

portraits  or  subject-pictures,  considered  them  of  little 
importance.  Watts  did,  indeed,  rank  landscape  lower 
than  portraiture  and  subject-painting  ; I have  already 
quoted  him  as  comparing  the  art  of  Turner  with  that 
of  Michel  Angelo,  Raphael  and  Titian,  and  saying 
that  ‘lacking  the  directly  human  appeal  to  human 
sympathies,  his  work  must  be  put  on  a lower  level. ^ 
Such  a dictum  as  this  invites  discussion  upon  which  we 
must  not  enter  here.  We  must  restrict  ourselves  to 
noting  its  significance  with  regard  to  Watts’s  attitude 
towards  nature.  We  have  already  seen  reasons  for 
saying  that  even  if  we  agree  with  this  estimate  of 
landscape  painting  it  is  not  applicable  to  the  work 
of  Turner,  which  is  full  of  human  interest.  And, 
conversely,  we  find  some  noble  landscape  painting  in 
many  of  Watts’s  subject-pictures.  This  happens,  in- 
deed, so  often,  that,  when  we  have  added  this  accessory 
landscape  to  that  of  the  pictures  in  which  it  is  the  only 
or  chief  interest,  we  have  a quite  considerable  body  of 
landscape  painting. 

It  will  be  both  convenient  and  instructive  to  consider 
separately,  and  in  the  first  instance,  the  landscape 
accessory  to  figures  ; which  is  often  not  merely  the 
appropriate  natural  setting  for  them,  but  is  tuned  to 
and  echoes  the  mood  of  the  subject,  gay,  grave,  or  sad. 

What,  for  example,  could  be  more  appropriate,  and 


134  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

at  the  same  time  more  beautiful  in  itself,  than  the  blue 
sky  and  white  cloud,  and  the  brilliant  sunshine  gleam- 
ing and  glistening  on  man  and  horse,  on  armour  and 
leafage,  in  Sir  Galahad?  In  The  Creation  of  Eve 
there  is  a blaze  of  palpitating  sunlight,  and  a swirl  of 
leafage  and  flowers  and  birds,  as  if  all  the  powers  of 
nature  were  conscious  that  the  creation  of  which  they 
were  a part  was  now  complete,  and  all  their  being 
consummated  in  humanity.  Similar  to  the  landscape 
in  Sir  Galahad  is  that  in*  the  two  Fata  Morgana 
pictures,  and  in  Mischief;  only  in  them,  in  harmony 
with  their  subject,  the  shade  seems  to  be  gaining  on 
the  light.  There  is  beautiful,  tranquil  landscape  in 
The  Childhood  of  Zeus^  Ariadne  in  Naxos  and  Una 
and  the  Red  Cross  Knight,  In  Building  the  Ark,  we 
have  a coming  storm.  The  clothing  and  the  beard  of 
Noah  are  caught  by  the  wind  ; the  sea  is  rising,  and 
growing  dark  beneath  a sky  in  which  the  clouds  are 
gathering  fast.  Watts  makes  use  here  of  a dark 
horizon,  with  a thin  gleam  of  light  just  above  it,  and 
the  effect  is  to  surround  the  figures,  even  more  to  the 
imagination  than  to  the  sight,  with  the  two  infinities  of 
sea  and  sky.  In  Love  steering  the  Boat  of  Humanity, 
a storm  is  raging,  and  is  powerfully  rendered,  though 
without  any  attempt  at  close  realism. 

There  is  impressive  landscape — again  we  have  to 


LANDSCAPE 


135 

say  how  inadequate  is  this  word — in  all  the  pictures 
of  the  deluge ; in  The  'Dove  that  returned^  where  we 
see  the  frail  bird  winging  its  flight  over  the  great, 
monotonous  waste  of  waters  ; in  The  Dove  that  re^ 
turned  not^  where,  though  the  waters  are  still  there, 
the  terror  is  gone  from  them,  when  they  are  seen 
through  the  boughs  of  the  tree  in  which  the  dove  has 
found  a resting-place  ; and,  again,  in  After  the  Deluge^ 
where  above  the  waters  there  is  a glory  of  misty, 
golden  light  encircling  the  sun,  which  is  the  symbol  as 
it  is  the  agent  of  the  Deity  ; for,  now  that  their  awful 
purpose  has  been  fulfilled,  the  waters  are  being  drawn 
again  to  the  sky  from  which  they  came  when  the  in- 
visible vapours  formed  themselves  into  the  clouds  that, 
overburdened,  broke  into  avenging  rain.  Here  we  may 
fitly  interpolate  one  of  Watts’s  pure  landscapes,  Ararat. 
Shoulder  beyond  shoulder  of  naked  rock  rises  out  of 
a deep,  dark  abyss,  until  the  highest  peak  stands  out, 
shadowy  against  the  cloudless  sky,  illumined  by  the 
moon,  just  rising  from  behind  the  mighty  mountain’s 
crest.  It  is  a solemn  picture,  filled  also  with  solemn, 
if  legendary  associations.  So  high  and  higher,  thought 
the  men  of  the  early  world,  would  the  waters  rise,  if 
need  were,  for  the  execution  of  the  judgments  of  God. 
But,  above  again,  the  stars  are  shining. 

Again  and  again  Watts  gives  to  his  allegorical  sub- 


136  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

jects,  as  did  also  Blake,  a setting  of  little  or  nothing 
beyond  almost  featureless  sea  or  land  and  sky,  with  the 
horizon-line,  or  dark  outline  of  hill,  so  powerfully  sug- 
gestive of  mystery  and  infinity,  clearly  marked,  as  in 
Building  the  by  a narrow  gleam  of  light  above  it. 
Thus  the  meaning  of  the  picture  seems  to  escape  the 
limits  of  time  and  space : to  become  inward  and 
spiritual  though  external  and  visible  in  presentment. 
We  find  this  in  such  other  pictures  as  Whence^ 
W hither  I ; Destiny;  and  Love  Triumphant.  Of  the 
first  of  these  Mr.  Clausen  says  : ‘ W hat  is  it  we  see  in 
this  picture  ? W hat  are  the  facts  presented  ? A 
little  naked  child  running  up  from  the  sea-beach. 
Well,  one  may  see  this  by  the  sea  at  any  time  ; but 
yet  this  picture  does  not  remind  us  of  so  ordinary  an 
incident.  The  key  is,  of  course,  given  us  by  the  title, 
but  I think  if  we  had  the  picture  before  us  for  a time 
without  any  title,  we  should  begin  to  realise  that  the 
sea  was  not  the  ordinary  blue  sea,  but  that  he  had  made 
it  to  convey,  as  fully  as  he  could,  all  that  the  sea  and 
sky  can  express  of  mystery,  loneliness  and  power.  W e 
feel  it  is  something  terrible  and  strong,  and  the  child, 
coming  up  from  it  towards  us,  gives  us  the  sense  of 
life,  taking  shape  and  consciousness  out  of  formless 
things.’  This,  let  us  bear  in  mind,  is  the  tribute  of  a 
landscape  painter,  himself  keenly  awake  to  the  sugges- 


LANDSCAPE 


137 


tions,  in  nature,  of  beauty  and  power.  Similarly,  Mr. 
Clausen  notes  how  the  ills  that  must  come  to  a wealth- 
corrupted  land  are  forcibly  suggested  by  the  dark  and 
threatening  sky  in  the  picture  Caii  these  Bones  live  ? 

Several  of  the  pictures  of  biblical  subjects  are  made 
more  impressive  by  the  figures  being  placed  in  a bare 
upland  country  where  the  eye  ranges  over  a wide  pros- 
pect of  hills,  billowy  as  if  a sea  had  been  changed  into 
solid  ground.  Such  is  the  landscape  in  Sa??ison,  Esau, 
Jacob  and  Esau,  The  Good  Samaritan,  and  The  Prodigal 
Son,  The  vastness  of  the  surroundings  helps  to  give 
that  sense  of  far-off  time  and  place  which  fits  them  ; 
and  yet  they  are  living,  and  their  happenings  might  be 
things  of  to-day.  The  stories,  and  those  who  told 
them,  belong  to  the  past ; but  the  meaning  of  the 
stories  is  for  all  time. 

If,  then.  Watts  had  never  painted  landscape  other- 
wise than  as  an  accessory  in  his  figure-subjects,  we 
should  have  owed  to  him  not  a few  impressions,  with  a 
distinctive  value  of  their  own,  of  the  beauty  and  power 
of  nature.  But,  being  thus  sensitive  to  the  moods  of 
nature  that  answer  to  moods  of  the  human  spirit,  it  was 
almost  inevitable  that  he  should  at  times  give  them  in- 
dependent interpretation,  for  their  own  sake  only  ; and 
this,  in  fact  he  did.  And  these  landscapes  are  what 
we  might  expect  after  seeing  what  use  he  made  of 


138  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

landscape  in  his  figure-subjects.  They  are  not  realistic, 
they  are  impressions  ; as  much  so  as  the  landscapes 
of  Whistler,  though  usually  with  less  feeling  for 
subtlety  of  light  and  atmosphere  and  more  feeling  for 
colour. 

During  h;s  stay  in  Florence  he  painted  the  hill- 
sides of  Val  d’Arno,  with  the  white-walled  villas 
dotted  amid  the  greenery.  He  painted  several  land- 
scapes when  he  was  with  Sir  Charles  Newton’s  ex- 
pedition ; one  that  comes  to  mind  being  Asia  Minor ^ in 
which  a rocky  coastline  is  silhouetted  against  a glowing 
sky.  The  Isle  of  Cos  is  an  exquisitely  beautiful  pic- 
ture of  an  island  seen  across  the  water  in  misty  light, 
vibrating  in  tone  and  colour.  Egypt  he  summarised, 
we  may  say,  in  two  of  the  pictures  he  painted  there  ; 
The  Sphinx,  in  which  that  dateless  monument  looms 
vast  in  grey,  uncertain  light  ; and  The  Nile,  the  river 
on  whose  fertile  shores  there  slowly  grew,  beginning  we 
know  not  when,  the  civilisation  whose  records  the 
excavator  to-day  is  carrying  further  and  ever  further 
into  the  past.  This  second  picture  is  not  one  of  the 
best,  technically,  of  Watts’s  landscapes ; he  has  not  quite 
succeeded  in  giving  to  his  yellow  pigment  the  illusion 
of  glowing  light ; but  still  it  is  impressive  ; and  no 
better  moment  could  be  chosen  for  calling  up  the  pro- 
found emotions  that  the  very  name  of  the  river  arouses. 


NAPLES 


- 


LANDSCAPE 


139 

than  when  its  waters  are  darkening  under  the  fading 
though  still  richly  glowing  light  of  a cloudless  sky. 

There  are  yet  other  pictures  by  Watts  of  the 
Mediterranean  and  the  lands  that  enclose  it.  Off 
Corsica,  and  J Sea  Ghost — the  ghost  being  a ship 
looming  out  of  a sea-mist — are  impressions  quite  in  the 
spirit  of  Whistler.  There  is  a little  picture  of  a grey 
Vesuvius  seen  over  an  only  less  grey  Naples  ; a larger 
Naples  gives  a wider  view  over  the  city  and  bay  and 
mountain  where  beauty  and  terror  are  in  such  close 
association  ; while  a Bay  of  Naples  is  not  the  tradi- 
tional brilliantly  sunlit  scene,  but  a momentary  effect  of 
gleam,  and  gloom  and  weirdly  contrasted  colour.  The 
Mountains  of  Carrara  Watts  painted  rising  tier  upon 
tier  into  the  sky,  the  distance  mellowing  their  slopes 
and  peaks  into  softly  blended  and  divided  hues.  For 
foreground  we  have  part  of  a building,  weather-worn 
and  overrun  with  creepers  ; the  stones  of  which  were 
hewn  out  centuries  ago  from  those  far-away  mountain- 
flanks. 

If  we  travel  to  the  north  we  come  to  the  scene  of 
one  of  Watts’s  finest  landscapes,  St.  Agnese,  Mentone, 
Beyond  the  nearer,  wooded  hills,  with  houses  on  their 
slopes  and  summits,  rise,  high  into  the  clear  air,  great, 
rugged  mountain  masses,  outliers  of  the  mighty  Alpine 
chain.  It  is  as  a label  for  such  a picture  as  this  that 


140  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

the  word  landscape  is  so  inadequate.  The  picture  is  a 
great  nature-poem,  a solemn  ode  to  the  mighty  powers 
that,  working  through  incalculable  years,  have  shaped 
these  majestic  forms  out  of  vaster,  simpler  masses  of 
rock  thrust  up  beyond  the  general  level  of  the  earth  in 
earlier  ages  still.  How  puny  look  the  dwellings  of 
man  over  against  these  broad-based,  towering  heights  ! 
And  huge  as  the  mountains  look  to  us,  we  know  that 
it  is  but  our  littleness  that  makes  them  seem  to  press 
far  into  the  vast  abysm  of  space.  One  of  the  most 
striking  features  of  this  picture  is  its  wonderful  colour. 
Sir  Wyke  Bayliss  said  of  the  colours  in  Watts’s  pic- 
tures : ‘ They  cannot  be  adequately  described  by  the 
words  we  use  to  describe  the  paints  upon  a palette.’ 
There  is  such  a colour  in  this  picture  ; a blue,  on  the 
mountains  and  in  the  sky,  that  has  not  to  do  with  material 
things,  but  with  awe,  with  mystery,  with  infinity.  It 
is  not  enough,  before  such  a scene  as  this,  to  talk, 
with  Pope,  of  rising  from  nature  up  to  nature’s  God  ; 
the  God  of  splendour  and  majesty  is  present  here, 
immanent  in  what  we  see,  speaks  to  us  and  raises  us 
towards  Him  through  the  splendid  vision.  The  place 
whereon  we  stand  is  holy  ground. 

Another  mountain  scene.  Savoy,  is  a picture  that 
would  probably  go  unnoticed  in  a big  exhibition.  In 
fact,  we  have  to  get  the  scale  of  it  before  we  adequately 


ST.  AGNES  E,  MENTION  E 


LANDSCAPE 


41 


realise  its  power.  Then  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face, 
not  merely  with  nearer  or  more  distant  Alpine  ranges 
and  peaks,  separated  from  each  other  by  deep  valleys^ 
but  we  can  almost  people  this  vast  solitude  with  the 
Titans  of  Chaos ; for  we  know  that  the  clouds  that  pass 
over  or  shroud  the  summits  are  still  agents  in  the  long 
process  of  evolution.  In  yet  another  mountain  sub- 
ject, Sunset  on  the  Jllps^  a recollection  of  an  almost 
momentarily  witnessed  effect,  the  painter  has  actually 
given  vaguely  human  form  to  the  glowing  clouds  that 
rise  high  above  the  peak,  illumined  by  the  slowly 
sinking  sun. 

In  Scotland  Watts  could  hardly  escape  from  things 
that  moved  him  strongly  : light  and  colour  and  massive 
form.  An  Afterglow^  Scotland^  is  an  impressive  render- 
ing of  a common  but  far  from  commonplace  effect  of 
glowing  sky  beyond  the  darkening  moorland.  In  two 
pictures  of  Loch  Ness,  upon  which  we  look  down  from 
one  of  the  wooded  hills  that  almost  enclose  it,  the  light 
seems  rather  to  pervade  and  sublimate  both  land  and 
water,  than  merely  to  illumine  them.  A third  High- 
land subject.  Loch  Ruthven,  is  strongly  reminiscent  of 
the  Savoy  already  mentioned.  The  loch  is  in  the 
forefront  of  the  picture,  and  beyond  we  see  range  after 
range  of  hills.  Once  more  it  is  a record  of  the  ages 
that  we  read  in  this  vista  of  Titan-sculptured  hills  and 


142  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

valleys.  And,  at  the  same  time,  there  is  full  apprecia- 
tion of  the  beauty  of  form  and  colour. 

It  is  significant  of  the  intensity  of  Watts’s  imagina- 
tion that  we  can  follow  him,  with  only  change,  not 
lessening,  of  interest  of  the  highest  kind,  from  such 
subjects  as  those  we  have  just  rapidly  passed  in  review, 
to  English  fields  and  woodlands  and  gently  sloping, 
tree-clad  hills.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  for  the  tiniest 
plant,  living  and  passing  on  its  life,  is  a more  wonder- 
ful thing  than  the  hugest,  inert  mountain  mass.  The  sun 
himself  is  not  so  great  a marvel  as  the  life  he  helps  to 
nourish.  Such  a picture  as  A Rain  Cloud  is  a con- 
necting link  between  lifeless  and  living  nature.  High 
into  the  air  rises  the  great,  billowy  cloud,  formed  of 
the  vapours  drawn  from  the  sea  beneath  it ; and, 
borne  inland,  it  will  make  fertile  the  soil  that  has  been 
carried  down  from  the  hills  by  rivers  formed  of  the 
rain  of  clouds  innumerable  through  unnumbered  years. 
Thus  the  sun  and  the  rain  and  the  rock,  which  we  say 
have  no  life,  yet  render  possible  the  myriad  forms  of  life 
around  us,  in  which  we  also  find  our  place  and  rank. 

For  his  pictures  of  field  and  woodland.  Watts  did 
not  need  to  travel  far  in  search  of  material.  He  found 
enough  in  the  country  immediately  around  his  Surrey 
home,  and  about  the  home  of  another  nature-poet,  his 
friend  Tennyson,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  Tennyson, 


A RAIN-CLOUD 


LANDSCAPE 


H3 

we  may  note  here,  might  have  learned  to  describe 
nature  from  seeing  W atts’s  pictures ; or  W atts  might 
have  learned  to  picture  nature  from  reading  Tennyson^s 
poems.  The  parallels  between  the  work  of  the  two 
men  are  numerous.  In  writing  of  Watts  one  is  tempted 
to  quote  Tennyson  at  every  turn.  Their  minds  had 
much  in  common  ; they  grew  up  under  the  influence  of 
the  same  traditions  and  surroundings  ; they  were  friends, 
and  there  was  much  interchange  of  thought  between 
them.  The  ‘Freshwater’  pictures  painted  by  Watts 
are  quite  in  the  character  of  Tennyson’s  intimate  land- 
scape descriptions  : homely  scenes  amid  which  we  can 
almost  see  living  and  loving,  rejoicing  or  sorrowing,  the 
people  in  Tennyson’s  poems  of  English  village-life. 
Picturesquely  irregular  farm  - buildings,  with  high- 
pitched  roofs  of  thatch  ; wattled  fences  ; the  water- 
butt  under  the  eaves ; the  ladder  against  the  wall ; old, 
straggling,  twisted  fruit-trees  ; great  elms  towering  high 
above  the  buildings  ; the  distance  hidden  by  trees  that 
line  the  hedge-rows  or  are  scattered  about  the  fields : of 
such  material  is  made  ‘ England’s  green  and  pleasant 
land  ’ in  which  even  the  great  dreamer  Blake  could  re- 
joice, and  which  Tennyson  — to  yield  to  temptation  and 
quote  him — makes  vivid  to  sight  and  feeling,  in  the 
description  of  the  pictured  arras  in  the  Palace  of  Art, 
which  showed  many  kinds  of  landscape. 


144  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

And  one,  an  English  home — grey  twilight  pour’d 
On  dewy  pastures,  dewy  trees, 

Softer  than  sleep — all  things  in  order  stored, 

A haunt  of  ancient  Peace. 

The  neighbourhood  of  Watts’s  country-home,  the 
house  standing  on  a knoll  in  a secluded  hollow  in  the 
North  Downs,  and  well-nigh  surrounded  by  Scots 
pines,  afforded  many  varieties  of  scene.  From  the 
top  of  the  Hog’s  Back  ridge,  there  are  wide  views  over 
rolling  country,  alternately  field  and  woodland,  under  a 
wide  expanse  of  sky.  Sandy  lanes,  between  tangled 
hedge-rows,  wind  down  into  the  hollows,  where  stream- 
lets babble,  and  where  the  wild-flowers  peep  out  from 
among  the  grasses  amid  the  dappled  light  and  shade 
beneath  the  trees.  From  his  own  house-windows 
Watts  could  paint  Green  Summer,  where  the  gaunt, 
bare  pine — riven  probably  by  lightning  in  some  storm  of 
years  ago — stands  apart  from  and  towers  above  its 
fellows,  as  if  defiant  of  the  fate  that  inevitably  awaits 
it — which,  indeed,  has  come  upon  it ; for  it  fell. to  the 
ground  about  a year  after  the  painter’s  death. 

In  another  picture,  painted  from  a Limnerslease  - 
window,  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  could  find  argument  for 
his  contention  that  Watts  was  not  happy  unless  he  was 
proving  something,  but  only  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
dictum  that  landscape  proves  nothing.  Three  tree- 


LANDSCAPE 


M5 

stems  occupy  nearly  all  the  canvas,  and  around  the 
central  and  stoutest  one  ivy  has  thickly  entwined  itself. 
Parasite  is  the  brief,  suggestive  title  of  the  picture. 
Between  the  tree-stems  we  get  delightful  peeps  into  one 
of  the  hollows  described  above.  In  A yiezu  in  Surrey 
we  look  dov/n  into  one  of  them  without  interruption  of 
trees,  or  even  any  foreground.  Immediately  below  is 
a field  across  which  a ploughman  is  leading  home  his 
slow-pacing  horses  ; beyond  is  a tree-clad  hill-side  ; 
and  the  sky,  carried  high  above,  suggests,  once  more, 
the  sun  and  rain  without  which  all  ploughing,  sowing 
and  planting  would  be  profitless. 

Passing  to  some  general  matters  we  see  from  his 
pictures  that  Watts  cared  more  for  trees  than  for 
flowers.  It  would  be  difficult  to  think  of  his  ever 
being  what  we  have  in  mind  when  we  speak  of  a 
flower  painter.  When  he  did  paint  flowers  it  was 
usually  in  masses,  and  the  individual  form  was  only 
suggested.  We  find  the  lily  more  carefully  delineated; 
but  this  was  for  symbolic  purpose.  We  might  put  it 
that  flowering  appealed  to  Watts  more  than  flozvers:  the 
general,  rather  than  the  individual  life.  It  w'as  so,  again, 
with  foliage.  If  he  particularised  leaves,  it  was  for  a 
special  purpose,  as  with  the  oak-leaves  in  Can  these 
Bones  live  ? or  because  they  were  individually  large 
and  handsome,  like  the  leaves  of  the  horse-chestnut,  of 


146  GEORGE  FREDERICK*  WATTS 

which  he  was  evidently  particularly  fond  ; for  they 
appear  again  and  again  in  his  pictures : so  often,  indeed, 
that  it  would  be  superfluous  to  give  examples.  So  we 
may  say  that  he  cared  more  for  leafage  than  for  leaves. 
Indeed,  in  more  than  one  picture,  the  trees  give  little 
sense  even  of  leafage  : they  are  only  so  many  masses 
of  varied  colour.  In  Sur?'ey  Woodlands  it  is  the  rich 
green  foliage  and  ruddy  stems  of  the  Scots  pines, 
against  a blue  sky,  that  have  attracted  the  painter  ; 
while  The  End  of  the  Day  is  a veritable  ode  or  hymn 
in  colour,  a glory  of  green  and  gold  and  red  and 
purple. 

Is  not  this,'  at  least,  a near  approach  to  the  grand 
style?  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  says  that  the  artist  who 
has  a true  appreciation  of  that  style  ‘will  leave  the 
meaner  artist  servilely  to  suppose  that  those  are  the  best 
pictures,  which  are  most  likely  to  deceive  the  spec- 
tator. He  will  permit  the  lower  painter,  like  the 
florist  or  collector  of  shells,  to  exhibit  the  minute 
discriminations,  which  distinguish  one  object  of  the 
same  species  from  another  ; while  he,  like  the  philoso- 
pher, will  consider  nature  in  the  abstract,  and  represent 
in  every  one  of  his  figures  the  character  of  its  species.’ 
We  have  not  mentioned  the  grand  style,  and  quoted 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  order  to  embark  on  contro- 
versy,' but  as  an  aid  to  making  clear  what  it  was  that 


LANDSCAPE 


H7 

Watts  aimed  at  in  landscape  painting.  Nature  aroused 
in  him  certain  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  he  painted 
such  pictures  as  seemed  to  him  to  express  them  and 
likely  to  arouse  them  in  others.  What  do  his  land- 
scapes say  to  us  ? They  say  that  Nature  is  vast  in 
time  and  in  space  ; is  mysterious,  and,  in  turns,  awful, 
fierce,  mild,  bright,  dark  ; now  fills  us  with  joy, 
and  now  with  sadness,  fear  or  strange,  vague  longing. 
Nature  is  prolific  ; life  abundant  and  myriad-formed 
pours  out  from  her  womb  ; and  there  is  death  also,  so 
that  life  itself  is,  or  seems  to  be,  but  a succession  of 
lives.  Nature,  also,  is  full  of  beauty,  of  beauty  of 
light  and  colour  and  form,  which  reaches  us  through 
sight,  as  the  beauty  of  sound,  whether  the  music  of 
nature  or  of  art,  reaches  us  through  hearing.  If  these 
pictures  speak  to  us  in  this  wise  shall  we  ask  curiously 
whether  the  painter  goes  sufficiently  into  detail ; shall 
we  refuse  him  the  right  to  single  out  from  many  facts 
those  which  have  particularly  impressed  him  ? This  is 
how  he  puts  it  himself.  ‘ I must  produce  an  effect, 
and  so  I must  ignore  something,  and  accentuate  some- 
thing else.  Thus  only  can  I make  the  representation.’ 
Again  he  says  : ‘ The  photographer  represents  the 
material  truth  as  no  painter  can  do.  His  truth-render- 
ing beats  the  greatest  of  dead  or  living  artists  ; yet  his 
object  twenty  yards  away  is  not  the  same  as  his  object 


1+8  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

close  to.  Which  is  the  truth  ? Both  ; and  there  is 
yet  another  truth,  through  the  microscope.^  Truth  of 
feeling  is  not  the  same  as  minutely  accurate  truth  of 
fact.  We  may  not  care  to  talk  with  Sir  Joshua  about 
seeing  nature  in  the  abstract,  and  about  individuals  and 
species.  Has  not  Ruskin  warned  us  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  abstract  cow  ? There  is  a time  for 
everything.  There  is  a time  to  discriminate ; and 
there  is  a time  to  crowd  together  until  we  cannot 
discriminate ; until  wt  become  conscious  only  of  a 
general  fact  or  a common  life,  and  feel  that  we  are  in 
the  presence  of  one  ultimate  life  and  energy  from 
w'hich  all  things  proceed.  This  is  what  the  land- 
scapes of  Watts  can  do  for  us. 


IX 


PORTRAITURE 

We  might  seem  to  be  at  least  risking  an  anti-climax  in 
turning  to  the  quietude  of  portraiture  after  all  the 
varied  and  intense  interest  of  Watts’s  subject-pictures. 
We  have  learned  to  say,  of  course,  that  art  can  achieve 
nothing  higher  than  the  portrayal  of  the  features  and 
the  interpretation  of  the  character  of  a human  being. 
Ruskin  sought  to  show  his  Oxford  hearers  ‘ how  much 
more  useful,  because  more  humble,  the  labour  of  great 
masters  might  have  been,  had  they  been  content  to 
bear  record  of  the  souls  that  were  dwelling  with  them 
on  earth,  instead  of  striving  to  give  a deceptive  glory  to 
those  they  dreamed  of  in  heaven.’  W e have  seen  that 
Watts  was  of  this  positive  temper.  We  get  from  him 
no  saints  and  angels,  no  plains  of  heaven  and  deeps 
of  hell  ; only  noble  men  and  good  women,  deep  sym- 
pathy with  human  faith  and  hope  and  fear,  joy  in  the 
purest  human  love,  and  faithful  denunciation  of  human 
evil.  It  was  to  the  setting  forth  of  these  immediately 


149 


150  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

pressing  realities  that  his  imaginative  powers  were  de- 
voted. To  what  is  beyond  them  he  did  not  try  to 
give  form. 

Still  it  might  be  said  that  surely  mere  portraiture 
cannot  rival  in  interest  even  such  restrained  imagination 
as  there  is  in  Watts’s  subject-pictures.  But  we  must 
not  forget  the  associations  that  a portrait  may  have. 
Had  Watts  merely  pictured  those  who  could  pay  him 
well  for  his  work,  even  though,  like  Dante’s  visitors, 
they  were  people  of  importance  in  the  city,  we  might 
not  have  cared  to  end  with  his  portraits.  But  his  record 
is  chiefly  that  of  men  of  whom,  if  we  do  not  say 
rhetorically  that  the  world  was  not  worthy,  yet  we  do 
say  that  they  were  and  are  among  the  worthiest  of  their 
time  ; men  the  mere  mention  of  whose  names  calls  up 
the  highest  achievements  in  active  life,  in  thought,  in 
poetry,  in  music,  in  all  the  arts.  We  must  know  little 
of  the  best  that  has  been  done  and  thought  and  said  in 
the  world  if  such  a range  of  portraits  as  that  by  W atts 
in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  do  not  move  us  pro- 
foundly. 

We  have  seen  that  he  early  formed  the  purpose  of 
leaving  a record  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  own  day. 
It  was  no  light  undertaking  for  a mere  youth  to  set 
before  himself.  We  know  now  that  he  was  worthy  of 
it.  He  himself  was  diffident.  Others  had  more  con- 


PORTRAITURE 


151 

fidence  in  him  than  he  had  in  himself.  All  he  knew 
was  that  the  task  was  laid  upon  him  and  that  he  must 
do  what  was  in  him  to  accomplish  it.  He  had  a call, 
and  must  respond.  And  now  that  what  he  did  under 
so  deep  a sense  of  responsibility  is  before  us,  we  need 
no  mean  comparison  to  measure  its  value  for  us  and  for 
posterity.  The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
wishful  to  stimulate  his  brethren,  told,  in  eloquent  lan- 
guage, the  story  of  the  long  line  of  the  heroes  and 
heroines  of  the  Hebrew  people ; and,  then,  likening 
them  to  old  athletes  watching  young  runners,  he  be- 
sought those  to  whom  he  wrote  to  run  well  their  race, 
inspired  by  the  thought  of  the  great  company  of  on- 
lookers who  also  had  run  well  in  their  day.  In  like 
manner,  with  art  that  we  may  rightly  call  eloquent, 
W atts  painted  the  portraits  of  many  of  the  finest 
‘ runners  ’ of  his  own  time,  for  the  inspiration  of  those 
who  should  come  after  them. 

When  quite  a boy  Watts  made  an  admirable  copy  in 
oil  of  an  unfinished  Head  of  a Lady  by  Sir  Peter  Lely, 
and  eked  out  his  slender  income  by  painting  small 
portraits.  The  portrait  of  himself,  at  the  age  of  seven- 
teen, with  long  hair,  and  Byronic  collar  and  tie,  is  a 
remarkably  clever  sketch  for  one  so  young,  and  shows 
him  as  an  eager,  and  intelligently  observant  youth. 
Two  years  later  he  painted  the  portrait  of  his  father  ; 


152  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

and  again  we  note  the  competent  workmanship,  and  the 
realisation  of  an  earnest,  intelligent  personality,  deeply 
tinged  with  melancholy.  The  influence  of  Vandyck’s 
T an  der  Geest  portrait  in  the  National  Gallery  has  been 
seen  in  this  early  w'ork.  The  encouragement  that 
Watts  received  from  the  Greek  merchant,  Mr. 
Constantine  lonides,  and  the  long  succession  of  por- 
traits of  members  of  his  family  painted  by  Watts, 
have  already  been  mentioned,  as  have,  also,  the  numer- 
ous portraits  he  painted  while  the  guest  of  Lord 
Holland  at  Florence.  The  Lady  Dorothy  Nevill  of 
this  time  is  a vivid  portrait ; but  in  colour  it  only  serves 
now  to  show  how  much  Watts  improved  in  later  years 
in  this  important  particular  of  his  art.  In  the  early 
and  middle  years  of  his  career,  we  may  note,  he  painted 
many  more  portraits  of  women  than  in  later  years. 

We  might  be  sure  that  Watts,  who  chose  his  own 
masters,  and  learned  from  them  in  his  own  way,  would 
form  his  own  ideal  of  portrait  painting.  The  master 
by  whom  he  was  influenced  most  was  undoubtedly 
Titian.  On  an  earlier  page  I have  quoted  what  he 
said  as  to  the  impression  made  upon  him  by  one  of  the 
great  Venetian  master’s  portraits  at  Florence.  He 
felt,  as  who  has  not  felt  of  Titian’s  portraits,  that  the  man 
almost  lived  again  in  the  likeness.  We  look,  and  half 
expect  a movement,  a change  of  expression,  a spoken 


PORTRAITURE 


153 

word.  We  lose  all  thought  of  the  painter.  In  fact, 
it  requires  an  effort  to  think  of  the  portrait  as  some- 
thing that  has  been  done  with  hand  and  brush  and 
pigment.  Artists  will  speak  of  their  work  as  having 
‘ come  right  ’ ; and  a great  portrait,  like  any  great 
work  of  art,  seems  to  have  come,  simply  to  be  there, 
rather  than  to  have  been  produced. 

It  is  one  thing  of  course  to  see  that  this  is  what 
portraiture  should  be  : it  is  another  thing  to  be  able  to 
rise  to  this  height.  Must  we  say  that  a portrait  painter 
is  born  not  made  ? W atts’s  early  work  points  to  a 
natural  gift.  But,  however  this  may  be,  he  consciously 
developed  his  power.  For  one  thing  he  resolutely  set 
himself  to  make  his  portraits  real,  individual,  not  typical 
or  ideal.  For  the  time  being  he  almost  became 
‘ possessed’  by  the  person  whom  he  was  painting.  Mr. 
Spielmann  quotes  him  as  saying  : ‘ In  my  imaginative 
work  I feel  myself  perfectly  free  as  to  detail  so  long  as  I 
do  not  violate  any  law  ; but  not  so  in  portrait  painting, 
when,  while  giving  my  mental  faculties  full  play  so  as 
to  seize  my  sitter’s  intellectual  characteristics,  I observe 
equally  the  physical  minutiae.  To  assist  myself  I con- 
verse with  him,  note  his  turn  of  thought,  his  disposition, 
and  I try  to  find  out  by  inquiry  or  otherwise  (if  he  is 
not  a public  man,  or  if  he  is  otherwise  unknown  to  me) 
his  character  and  so  forth,  and  having  made  myself 


154  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

master  of  these  details,  I set  myself  to  place  them  upon 
the  canvas,  and  so  reproduce  not  only  his  face,  but  his 
character  and  nature/  It  was  after  hearing  from  Watts 
some  such  description  as  this  of  portrait  painting,  that 
Tennyson  wrote  the  well-known  lines  in  Lancelot  and 
Elaine : 

And  all  night  long  his  face  before  her  lived, 

As  -when  a painter,  poring  on  a face. 

Divinely  thro’  all  hindrance  finds  the  man 
Behind  it,  and  so  paints  him  that  his  face. 

The  shape  and  colour  of  a mind  and  life. 

Lives  for  his  children,  ever  at  its  best 
And  fullest. 

This  is  all  quite  familiar  and  well  understood  to-day. 
Here  we  must  not  forget  that  it  was  chiefly  Watts  who 
made  it  so.  He  sought  to  lose  himself  in  his  subject, 
and  thereby  became  perhaps  the  greatest  of  modern 
portrait  painters,  and  by  his  example  raised  the  general 
status  of  the  art.  ‘ I have  wished  to  oblige  the  be- 
holder,’ he  said,  ‘ on  looking  at  the  portrait,  to  think 
wholly  of  the  face  in  front  of  him  and  nothing  of  the 
man  who  painted  it.’  He  succeeded  ; and  because  he 
succeeded  we  think  hardly  more  highly  of  any  among 
the  men  whose  portraits  he  painted  than  we  think  of 
himself.  What  higher  aim  can  a man  have  than  to 
leave  to  posterity  portraits  that  shall  almost  make  the 
best  and  greatest  of  their  age  live  again  ? And  if  he 
succeeds,  how  high  must  we  rank  his  success  ! 


CARDINAL  MANNING 


PORTRAITURE 


155 

In  nearly  all  W atts’s  portraits  of  men  the  accessories 
are  of  the  simplest.  Occasionally  we  have  a lawyer 
painted  in  his  robes,  or  a soldier  in  his  uniform  ; but  so 
unusual  is  this  that  when  we  see  it  we  are  inclined  to 
say  it  is  unlike  Watts.  A conspicuous  exception  to  the 
rule  is  the  portrait  of  Cardinal  Manning  ; though  here 
it  may  be  urged  that  the  magnificence  of  the  robes  only 
serves- to  emphasise  the  ascetic  thinness  and  pallor  of 
the  face.  Certainly  the  face  dominates  the  accessories  ; 
and  we  say  to  ourselves  it  is  because  this  man,  in  what 
he  believed  to  be  the  truest  service  of  God,  wore  him- 
self almost  to  the  bone,  that  he  came  to  such  high  place 
in  the  ranks  of  the  priesthood,  and  necessarily  bore  the 
traditional  symbols  of  his  high  office.  Another  ex- 
ception to  the  rule  is  the  portrait  of  Lord  Leighton, 
who  appears  in  academic  robes,  and  with  objects  of  art 
about  him. 

Watts  regretted  that  modern  dress  did  not  lend 
itself  to  the  picturesque  portraiture  of  men.  I once 
heard  a distinguished  painter,  fearless  in  the  expression 
of  his  views,  astonish  the  inmates  of  a club-room  by 
crying  out : ‘ There  is  no  chance  for  art  so  long  as 
men  wear  trousers  ! ’ Watts  must  have  had  in  mind 
the  low  level  to  which  the  art  of  tailoring  has  fallen  in 
these  days  when  he  wrote  : ‘ Portraiture  now  its  [art’s] 
most  real  expression,  is  deprived  (speaking  of  masculine 


156  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

portraits)  of  nearly  all  that  from  an  artistic  point  of 
view  can  render  it  valuable  to  posterity.  It  will  not 
do  to  say  that  a portrait  picture  cannot  be  made  a good 
and  interesting  piece  of  work  ; but  a man’s  portrait  can 
scarcely  be  made  as  a picture  beautiful,  or  be  cared  for 
in  the  future  as  we  now  care  for  a Venetian  or  Vandyck 
portrait,  without  knowing  anything  about  the  original.’ 
This  is  interesting  as  showing  that  Watts  would  have 
rejoiced  if  the  men  who  sat  to  him  could  have  come,  as 
the  sitters  to  the  older  masters  of  portrait  painting  came 
to  them,  in  garments  beautiful  both  in  form  and  in  colour. 
He  was  too  much  an  artist  to  have  any  sympathy  with 
bald  simplicity  in  dress,  much  less  with  ugliness  ; and 
remembering  this,  we  can  understand  his  regret  that  the 
majority  of  his  portraits,  great  as  they  might  be  as 
interpretations  of  character,  could  never  in  complete 
artistic  effect  hold  their  own  with  those  of  the  masters 
who  lived  and  worked  when  men  were  picturesquely 
dressed. 

Considering  Watts’s  portraits  in  detail  we  will  turn 
first  to  those  of  women  and  children.  It  is  often  said 
that  W atts  was  not  so  great  a painter  of  women  as  of 
men.  It  is  not  necessarily  a denial  of  this  statement 
to  say  that  there  are  portraits  of  women  by  Watts  that 
we  would  not  give  for  a wilderness  of  portraits  by  some 
men  who  rank  high  as  painters  of  women. 


HON.  MRS.  PERCY  WYNDHAM 


PORTRAITURE 


157 

The  masculine  critic  is  wont  to  account  for  the 
alleged  inferiority  of  this  side  of  Watts’s  work  by 
saying  that  the  faces  of  women  reveal  less  character 
and  mind  than  those  of  men,  and  that  Watts  cared  little 
for  mere  beauty  of  features  and  complexion.  Such  a 
portrait  as  the  Lady  Lilford^  in  which  the  charm  is 
that  of  a faultless  beauty  that  Watts  praised  in  words 
as  well  as  with  his  brush,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the 
second  part  of  this  explanation  is  inadequate.  As  to 
the  first  part  of  it,  the  character  and  mind  of  women 
are  not  less  than  those  of  men,  but  different  from  them  ; 
and  the  merit  of  Watts’s  portraits  of  women  is  that 
they  faithfully  represent  and  make  clear  this  difference. 
No  other  women  than  those  of  Watts  look  so  well  fitted 
to  be  the  companions  of  his  men : to  be  complementary 
to  them  in  the  necessary  division  of  the  work  of  life. 
Pure,  gentle,  loving,  thoughtful,  purposeful — such  are 
the  words  that  suggest  themselves  as  we  look  at  or  call 
to  mind  such  portraits  as  The  Sisters,  Countess  Somers, 
The  Ladies  Talbot,  Mrs.  Nassau  Senior,  Lady  Carvagh, 
Mrs.  Percy  Wyndham,  The  Countess  of  Darnley,  and 
many  others ; while  the  drawing  of  Lady  Mount 
Temple  seems  to  reach  the  limit  of  what  art  could 
hope  to  do  in  portraying  a woman  whose  intelligence, 
brightness  and  graciousness  age  has  only  intensified, 
not  dimmed.  We  may  admit  that  it  will  be  by  his 


158  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

portraits  of  men  chiefly  that  W atts  will  be  remembered 
— as  a portrait  painter,  that  is ; and  this  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  in  view  of  the  task  he  undertook  of  leaving 
a record  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time.  But  we  shall 
certainly  do  injustice  to  his  portraits  of  women  if  our 
criterion  be  only  that  while  men  should  be  profound  it 
is  the  peculiar  and  almost  the  only  privilege  of  women 
to  be  pretty.  Watts  could  see  the  prettiness,  and  he 
not  unseldom  painted  it ; but  he  preferred  to  emphasise 
character  ; and  there  is  in  his  portraits  a sympathetic 
interpretation  of  what  is  best  in  womanhood  that  is 
often  lacking  in  the  work  of  even  Reynolds  and 
Gainsborough  and  is  rarely  present  in  that  of  Romney. 

Watts  painted  portraits  of  children  and  young 
people,  not  merely  because  to  do  so  came  within  the 
scope  of  his  craft,  but  because  he  was  fond  of  them 
and  liked  to  have  them  about  him.  We  have  seen  the 
young  of  all  ages,  from  infancy  up  to  early  manhood 
and  womanhood  playing  many  parts  in  his  subject- 
pictures.  The  infants,  Zeus  and  Ganymede,  the  youth- 
ful knight  of  Aspirations^  Sir  Galahad  and  many  others, 
were  portraits  little  if  at  all  idealised.  Here  the  young 
people  were,  in  part,  a means  to  an  end  ; but  in  many 
other  pictures,  portraits  pure  and  simple,  they  were  an 
end  in  themselves.  There  is  a delightful  portrait  of  a 
baby,  as  soundly  asleep  as  little  Ganymede  or  the 


PORTRAITURE 


159 

strollers  in  the  land  of  Weissnichtwo  are  wide  awake. 
Spring  is  a most  charming  picture  of  a child  of  a few 
years  only,  who  is  gathering  flowers  in  the  woodland, 
and  stands,  at  the  moment,  with  the  quaint  stiffness 
that  is  one  of  the  marks  of  childish  absence  of  self- 
consciousness.  Pr^//y  Lucy  ^ond  and  Katie  are  por- 
traits of  children  of  older  growth.  Still  older  are  the 
girl  who  has  dropped  her  book,  and  wearily  looks  out 
of  the  window,  in  The  Rain  it  raineth  every  Day,  Miss 
Dorothy  Dene,  and  Miss  Lilian  Macintosh ; the  last  of 
whom  we  recognise  again  in  In  the  Highlands,  and  as 
the  Lilian  of  the  brilliant  picture  only  painted  in  the 
last  year  of  Watts’s  life.  Val  Prinsep,  in  after  years 
a fellow-member  of  the  Royal  Academy,  and  his  two 
brothers,  Lt.-General  Arthur  Prinsep,  c.b.,  and  Sir 
Henry  Thoby  Prinsep,  were  all  drawn  by  W atts  when 
they  were  youths.  It  is  the  soldier-brother  whom  we 
see  again  in  Aspirations  and  5/r  Galahad.  Once  more, 
while  noting  all  these  portraits  of  children  and  young 
people,  we  think  how  far  astray  M.  de  la  Sizeranne 
went  when  he  called  Watts  the  gloomiest  of  all  our 
painters. 

When  we  come  to  Watts’s  portraits  of  men  we 
reach  that  part  of  his  work  to  which  the  highest  praise 
is  unanimously  accorded.  Those  who  see  conflict 
between  the  spiritual  and  the  sensuous  elements  in  his 


i6o  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


subject-pictures  find  nothing  discordant  here.  It  is  at 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  through  the  artist’s  own 
gift  to  the  nation,  already  mentioned,  that  the  largest 
number  of  these  portraits  is  to  be  seen.  There  are 
others  at  Limnerslease,  some  of  which  will  remain 
there  permanently,  while  some  of  them  will  eventually 
find  a place  in  the  national  collection.  Other  portraits 
are  in  private  hands,  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  colleges 
and  elsewhere.  With  few  exceptions,  the  important 
ones  are  accessible  to  the  public.  Those  at  the 
Portrait  Gallery  are  not  too  well  shown  in  one  of  the 
small  rooms  of  that  curiously  designed  building.  They 
are  crowded  together ; and  some  of  them  are  skied 
almost  out  of  sight.  It  would  be  kinder  to  them,  and 
very  much  kinder  to  most  of  the  other  portraits  in  the 
same  room,  to  hang  them  separately.  Most  of  those 
that  will  bear  comparison  with  them  are  by  men  to 
whom  no  wrong  is  done  by  saying  that  they  came 
under  W atts’s  influence ; but  of  these,  few  if  any  have 
the  illusion  of  life ; they  are  more  or  less  successful 
likenesses  that  have  obviously  been  painted. 

As  we  have  said  of  Titian’s  portraits,  we  do  not 
think  of  the  majority  of  those  by  Watts  as  having  been 
produced.  The  men  are  there,  and  if  we  were  asked 
to  explain  their  presence,  the  natural  thing  to  say 
would  seem  to  be  simply  that  they  must  have  come 


PORTRAITURE 


i6i 


there.  Not  merely  have  their  features  been  correctly 
drawn,  and — the  supreme  test — an  expression  seized 
that  reveals  the  character  and  not  a mere  passing  mood ; 
but  the  skin  and  the  flesh  and  the  bone  beneath  the 
flesh  have  been  individually  seen  and  recorded.  Each 
portrait  has  its  own  formula  ; the  only  thing  they  have 
in  common  is  individual  truth. 

The  men  themselves  have  this  in  common  : they  are 
all  highly  endowed,  some  of  them  in  more  than  one 
respect.  W atts  has  been  called  a hero  worshipper.  If 
by  this  be  meant  that  he  overestimated  the  value  of  the 
great  man  as  against  the  collective  force  of  humanity 
it  is  probably  not  true.  The  subject-pictures  we  have 
studied  in  earlier  chapters  forbid  us  to  think  it.  All 
the  same  it  would  be  as  absurd,  in  general  life,  not  to 
take  note  of  exceptional  gifts,  and  allot  them  proper 
place  and  power,  as  it  would  be  for  a recruiting  sergeant 
to  take  no  note  of  chest  measurement,  or  a butcher  of 
big  flanks  of  beef.  True  worship  is  the  recognition 
of  worth,  both  for  its  own  effectiveness  and  for  its 
capacity  to  inspire  and  uplift  others.  The  best  worship 
is  not  obeisance,  but  emulation.  The  great  ones  are 
the  first  of  many  brethren.  It  is  to  such  worship  that 
Wattses  portraits  move  us.  They  portray  intelligence, 
earnestness,  zeal,  enthusiasm.  These  men  are  great ; 
but  they  are  too  great  to  know  it.  They  are  too 

M 


i62  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


deeply  conscious  of  what  is  above  them  to  be  disdain- 
ful of  what  is  beneath  them.  There  may  be  excep- 
tions among  them.  Watts  may  not  have  been  in- 
fallible as  a hero  worshipper.  The  future  may  have 
some  corrections  to  make  in  his  relative  estimates  of 
men.  His  selection  may  well  prove  to  have  had  faults 
in  both  inclusion  and  exclusion.  Still,  all  these  men 
have  played  important  parts  while  on  the  stage,  and 
posterity  will  be  glad  to  know  all  of  them  through 
portraiture  as  well  as  through  history,  biography,  and 
accomplishment. 

There  are  notable  omissions,  even  of  whole  classes. 
The  drama  is  not  represented  among  the  portraits  of 
men.  Nor,  again,  is  science,  as  associated  with  such 
men  as  Darwin,  Spencer,  Tyndall,  Huxley,  and 
others  of  their  contemporaries  and  successors.  It  is 
said  that  Watts  regretted  not  to  have  painted  the  por- 
trait of  Darwin.  Perhaps,  as  already  suggested,  the 
field  in  which  such  men  worked  was  one  in  which 
Wattses  interest  was  deficient.  It  may  be  significant, 
in  this  connexion,  to  recall  the  fact  that  Darwin  lost 
all  taste  for  poetry,  came  to  find  even  Shakespeare  dull 
and  nauseating,  and  almost  lost  his  taste  for  pictures  and 
music.  There  is  loss  as  well  as  gain  in  specialising. 

Of  individual  gaps  in  the  list  of  Watts’s  portraits 
the  most  remarkable,  and  perhaps  the  most  regrettable. 


PORTRAITURE 


163 

is  that  of  Ruskin.  There  was  a pathetic  reason  for 
the  omission.  So  great  was  the  admiration  of  the 
‘ Signor  ’ for  the  * Master/  that  he  shrank  from  the 
attempt  to  paint  his  portrait.  Then,  when  at  last 
Watts  had  nerved  himself  to  the  task,  Ruskin  was  too 
old  to  journey  to  London,  and  Watts  to  go  to 
Coniston  ; and  a portrait  that  would  have  had  the 
same  kind  of  interest  as  those  of  Tennyson  and 
Leighton  remained  unpainted.  What  a strangely 
eloquent  tribute  of  esteem  ! 

But  when  all  omissions,  either  purposed  or  acci- 
dental, have  been  taken  into  account,  the  net  still 
proves  to  have  been  widely  cast.  Nearly  every  im- 
portant sphere  of  action  and  of  thought  is  worthily 
represented. 

Among  the  men  of  action  is  Sir  John  Hawkshaw, 
who  looks  a man  capable  of  conceiving  and  counting 
the  cost  of  great  engineering  undertakings,  of  fighting 
Bills  through  Parliament,  and  of  carrying  out  schemes 
in  face  of  the  opposition  of  men  and  of  difficulties 
imposed  by  nature.  As  we  look  at  this  face,  strong, 
resolute,  cheery,  we  think  of  Carlyle’s  rugged,  un- 
conquerable Brindley,  who  retired  to  bed  to  think 
when  difficulties  accumulated  upon  him.  ‘The  in- 
eloquent  Brindley,  behold  he  has  chained  seas  together  ; 
his  ships  do  visibly  float  over  valleys,  invisibly  througli 


164  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

the  hearts  of  mountains ; the  Mersey  and  the  Thames, 
the  Humber  and  the  Severn  have  shaken  hands  : 
Nature  most  audibly  answers,  Yea ! ’ So  we  may 
say  : ‘ The  trains  do  disappear  into  Hawkshaw’s  tunnel, 
they  do  speed  along,  deep  down  beneath  the  shining 
waters  of  the  Severn,  and  they  do  pass  into  daylight 
again  ; and  the  counties  of  Monmouth  and  Gloucester 
are  no  longer  divided/ 

Lord  Lawrence  looks  as  if  history  would  have  had 
to  be  rewritten  had  it  been  recorded  that  any  other 
man  than  he  had  held  the  Punjab  through  the  Indian 
Mutiny.  But  for  the  kindly  light  in  the  eyes,  such 
brute-strength  and  dogged  resoluteness,  obvious  in  every 
line  and  contour  of  the  massive  head  and  swarthy  face, 
would  make  us  thankful  that  only  a portrait  and  not 
the  man  himself  was  before  us.  The  unfinished  portrait 
of  Cecil  Rhodes,  one  of  the  latest  additions  to  the 
national  collection,  might  well  confirm  the  estimate  of 
those  who  do  not  allow  their  admiration  for  his 
indisputable  energy,  force  of  will,  and  imagination  of  a 
grandiose  type,  to  blind  them  to  what  they  believe  to 
be  grave  deficiencies.  There  is  something  Carlylean 
in  Watts’s  tribute  to  Rhodes.  As  already  suggested, 
the  old  problem  of  the  means  and  the  end  presents 
itself  when  we  think  of  empire-building.  But  such 
questions  are  not  for  discusvsion  here. 


PORTRAITURE 


165 

The  soldierly  qualities  of  energy,  decision  and  alert- 
ness are  obvious  in  the  portrait  of  Lord  Roberts. 
From  Garibaldi,  who  was  an  idealist  as  well  as  a 
soldier.  Watts  was  only  able  to  obtain  a single  sitting 
when  the  great  Italian  patriot  was  in  this  country  in 
1864.  He  purposely,  therefore,  left  his  work  vague 
and  undefined ; and  it  is  now  as  if  the  spirit  rather 
than  the  form  of  the  man  were  before  us ; but  the 
strength,  the  determination  and  the  lofty  character 
are  all  there.  Our  naval  service  is  represented  by 
Admiral,  Lord  Lyons;  whose  portrait  Watts  painted 
at  Constantinople  in  1856.  It  bears  evidence  of  Pre- 
Raphaelite  influence ; and,  in  its  technique,  reminds 
one  of  the  work  of  Holman  Hunt. 

In  close  proximity,  in  the  national  collection,  hang 
the  portraits  of  Gladstone  and  Lord  Salisbury,  the 
Conservative  driven  into  Liberalism,  and  the  Con- 
servative whom  nothing  could  have  driven  into 
Liberalism.  The  former  looks  just  the  man  to  make 
excursions  into  many  fields  of  thought  and  action,  not 
always  with  as  much  discretion  as  zeal,  but  ever  with 
a lofty  purpose.  Lord  Salisbury  looks  equally  the 
man  to  sit  on  the  safety-valve  ; to  find  his  work  in 
maintaining  the  status  quo,  and  his  recreation  in  the 
patient  pursuit  of  science.  A third  force  in  contem- 
porary English  politics  is — would  some  Labour  men 


1 66  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


say  was'i — represented  by  John  Burns.  In  Watts’s 
portrait  he  looks  wiry,  eager;  not  so  much  ill-groomed 
as  ungroomed : the  man  to  take  his  coat  off.  He  is 
later  in  date  than  the  other  two ; and  represents 
political  forces  which,  though  not  unknown  to  them, 
have  come  to  a head  since  their  active  day.  So  the 
old  order  changes ; and  with  it  change  parties,  alliances 
and  antagonisms. 

These  three  men  may  stand  for  statesmanship  and 
politics ; though  Gladstone  refuses  to  be  confined 
within  these  limits.  Letters,  in  a minor  degree,  and 
politics,  diplomacy  and  administration,  all  found  a 
place  in  the  life  of  Lord  Dufferin,  of  whose  clear- 
cut,  forceful,  intellectual  face  Watts  has  left  an  admir- 
able record.  Diplomacy  can  claim  one  of  the  finest 
of  Watts’s  portraits,  that  of  Lord  Stratford  de  Red- 
cliffe.  It  is  a marvellous  study  of  a man  in  whom  the 
fires  of  life  are  beginning  to  burn  low.  The  shrewd- 
ness and  keenness  are  still  there.  This  is  a man  to 
see  and  know  more  than  he  speaks.  But  the  flesh  is 
failing;  the  bone  almost  shows  beneath  the  skin  on 
the  finely  modelled  brow,  over  which  the  hair  that 
casts  a delicate  shade  is  soft  and  silvery  white.  It  is 
a portrait  to  delight  the  student  of  character  and  to  be 
the  despair  of  the  painter. 

As  representing  medicine  we  may  name  the  finely 


fHOMAS  CARLYLE 


PORTRAITURE 


167 

expressive  portrait  of  Sir  William  Bowman  ; and  for 
the  law,  we  have  Lord  Campbell,  whose  small  full- 
length  portrait  is  one  of  the  few  in  which  Watts 
permitted  himself  the  use  of  official  costume  and 
appropriate  surroundings,  and  Lord  Davey  and  Mr. 
Russell  Gurney.  The  superb  portrait  of  the  last-named 
hangs  in  the  National  Gallery.  It  is  a masterpiece  of 
interpretation  and  subtle  workmanship,  and  one  has  often 
stood  long  before  it,  nothing  less  than  spell-bound. 

Work  among  the  people,  for  the  people,  is  repre- 
sented by  a drawing  of  Thomas  Wright,  the  prison 
philanthropist,  who  has  been  already  mentioned  in 
connexion  with  The  Good  Samaritan ; and  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury  and  Sir  Charles  Booth. 

Of  students,  philosophers  and  divines,  the  portraits 
are  almost  legion,  and  they  include  some  of  Watts’s 
finest  work.  There  is  Carlyle,  who  complained 
because  Watts  represented  him  truthfully — the  phrase 
being  interpreted — as  a mad  Scotch  farmer.  There 
is  Carlyle’s  friend,  though  his  opposite  in  philosophy, 
John  Stuart  Mill,  of  whom  Watts  alone  painted  a 
portrait,  twice  repeated  ; and  as  we  look  at  the  broad 
expanse  of  forehead,  the  thoughtful  eyes,  which  seem 
rather  to  look  inward  than  outward,  the  aquiline  nose, 
the  finely  drawn,  sensitive  mouth,  we  are  ready  to  say 
that  there  would  have  been  a mistake  somewhere  if 


1 68  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


this  man  had  not  written  the  Lo^c  and  the  Political 
Economy,  One  cannot  but  link  with  this  portrait  the 
fine  one  of  the  philosophical  divine,  Dr.  James 
Martineau.  There  is  much  in  common  between  the 
two  men.  There  is  evident  asceticism,  not  morbid, 
but  natural ; a healthy  condition  of  their  life  and 
work.  But  Martineau  has  clearly  the  more  emotional 
nature  ; there  is  enthusiasm,  none  the  less  deep  because 
restrained ; the  positive  philosophy  could  not  content 
such  an  one ; his  mind  reached  after  a higher  mind  ; 
his  soul  sought  communion  with  an  Over-Soul ; he 
might  here  be  thinking  out,  with  joyous  emotion,  one 
of  his  own  sentences  : ‘ The  causality  of  the  world, 
therefore,  is  at  the  disposal  of  the  all-holy  Will ; and 
whether  within  us  or  without  us,  in  the  distant  stellar 
spaces  or  in  the  self-conscious  life  of  the  tempted  or 
aspiring  mind,  we  are  in  one  divine  embrace, — “ God 
over  all,  blessed  for  ever.’’  ’ 

The  portrait  of  Cardinal  Manning  has  already  been 
incidentally  mentioned.  Here  asceticism  is  pushed  to 
an  extreme  : has  become  almost  an  end  rather  than  a 
means.  Here  is  one  in  authority,  yet  under  authority ; 
proud  and  strong  in  will,  yet  submissive  ; his  robes,  of 
scarlet  and  lace,  are  the  emblems  of  service;  so  is  the  cross 
that  hangs  from  the  chain  of  gold  cast  round  his  neck. 
Mill  is  calm,  recognising  the  authority  of  reason  ; 


ALFRED,  LORD  TENNYSON 


i 


I 

J 

i 


I 

I 

; PORTRAITURE  169 

! Manning  is  calm,  recognising  the  authority  of  the 
! Church  ; Martineau  is  perturbed,  recognising  the 
I limitations  of  all  authority,  and  the  duty  of  mind  and 
I spirit  ever  to  reach  after  higher  things.  ‘A  man’s  reach 
I should  exceed  his  grasp.  Or  what’s  a heaven  for  I ’ 

We  must  not  dwell  at  equal  length  on  all  these 
I'  portraits,  or  even  attempt  so  much  as  to  name  them  all. 
But  Lecky  and  Leslie  Stephen  must  be  named,  and 
Motley,  the  historian  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  whose 
large  blue  eyes,  thoughtful  almost  to  sadness,  arrest  the 
attention  and  haunt  the  memory ; and  W atts  did  little 
if  anything  finer  than  his  portrait  of  Panizzi,  the  Italian 
refugee  who  became  Chief  Librarian  of  the  British 
Museum.  This  reader,  engrossed  in  his  book,  to  utter 
oblivion  of  any  other  world  than  that  within  its  pages, 
with  his  pen  waiting  to  inscribe  the  note  his  mind  is 
unconsciously  framing,  is  represented  with  amazing 
insight  and  executive  skill. 

It  might  be  anticipated  that  W atts  would  achieve 
some  of  his  greatest  successes  in  painting  the  portraits 
of  poets  and  artists  ; and  this  was  so.  First  among 
the  poets,  for  reasons  that  preceding  pages  have  made 
clear,  we  take  Tennyson,  whom  Watts  painted  no 
fewer  than  six  times,  as  early  as  1856  and  as  late  as 
1890.  All  the  portraits  are  not  equally  good,  not 
equally  subtle  in  interpretation  and  workmanship  ; but 


lyo  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

they  all  set  forth  the  sensitive,  reserved  poet  and 
thinker,  with  the  broad  and  lofty  brow,  the  well-formed 
features,  and  the  eyes  which,  like  those  of  Mill,  seem 
to  look  inward  rather  than  outward.  Watts  himself, 
whose  thought  we  have  so  often  compared  with  that  of 
Tennyson,  came  to  have  this  introspective  look  in 
later  years.  In  marked  contrast  from  the  portraits  of 
Tennyson  is  that  of  Robert  Browning.  If  the  former 
look  like  a lion  at  rest,  the  latter  looks  like  a lion 
going  about  — seeking  material  for  poetry ; at  least 
seeking  something,  though  we  may  not  be  quite  sure 
what  that  something  is  ; for  neither  in  any  portrait  of 
him,  except  in  young  days,  nor  in  the  living  look  of 
him,  could  we  be  sure  of  making  a good  first  guess  at 
Browning’s  vocation.  Power  is  evident ; but  not  so 
certainly  the  kind  of  power.  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  even  more  obviously  the  poet  than 
Tennyson  ; the  portrait  is  almost  described  by  saying, 
not  poet,  but  bard.  Intelligence  warmed  by  emotion 
is  stamped  on  his  face.  Swinburne  looks  all  quiver, 
flash  and  flame — as  he  ought  to  look.  Sadness  touched 
with  irony  plays  about  the  firmly  chiselled  features  of 
Matthew  Arnold.  This  is  the  essayist  and  poet  who 
felt  himself 

Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 

The  other  powerless  to  be  born. 


DAN'l'E  GABRIEL  ROSSETT 


PORTRAITURE 


171 

To  George  Meredith  we  attribute  at  once  a keen 
and  subtle  intelligence. 

Dante  Rossetti  is  a link  between  the  poets  and  the 
painters.  There  is  sadness  here,  but  also  latent  lire 
and  enthusiasm  ; and  one  can  well  expect  that  the 
thought  and  emotion  of  such  a man  would  clothe 
themselves  in  sensuous  garb.  Burne-Jones,  the  pupil, 
almost  the  devotee  of  Rossetti,  is  here  seen  as  the 
lover  of  beauty  and  romance,  who  failed  to  find  them 
in  what  Ruskin  called  ‘ this  machine  and  devil-driven 
country,’  and  sought  them  in  the  beliefs  and  legends  of 
other  days,  yet  with  the  desire,  as  he  once  said  to  the 
present  writer,  of  telling  those  around  him  things  that 
it  seemed  to  him  necessary  for  the  people  of  j>ny  age 
or  clime  to  know.  In  the  portrait  of  William  Morris, 
Burne-Jones’s  lifelong  friend,  we  see  Watts  at  his 
best ; or,  rather,  we  do  not  see  him  at  all,  but  only 
Morris,  who  looks  what  he  was  ; a very  Viking  of 
poetry  and  art.  To  his  great  delight  he  was  once 
hailed  by  a mariner  as  the  skipper  of  the  Nancy  Jane  ! 
The  keen-sightedness,  full-bloodedness,  passionateness, 
and  determination  of  the  man  are  all  here.  Art  was 
not  to  him  a thing  for  studios,  drawing-rooms  and 
galleries ; it  was  indispensable  in  the  daily  life  of  the 
lowest  as  well  as  the  highest ; and  if  it  could  not  be 
thus  prevalent  under  existing  social  and  economic  con- 


172  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

ditions,  why,  then,  those  conditions  must  be  changed, 
forcibly  if  need  were.  Lord  Leighton,  on  the  other 
hand,  looks  like  what  he  was  ; the  constitutional 
monarch  of  academic  art ; and  we  see  him  amid  the 
splendours — very  beautiful,  which  all  splendours  are 
not — of  his  aesthetic  court.  This  portrait  explains 
I.eighton’s  art ; and  we  almost  hear  him  telling  the 
Academy  students  that  although  ‘ the  loftiest  moral 
purport  can  add  no  jot  or  tittle  to  the  merits  of  a work 
of  art  as  such^  yet  the  ethos ^ the  moral  quality  of  the 
artist,  will  reveal  itself  in  his  art  and  help  to  determine 
its  value.  Walter  Crane  takes  us  away  from  the  court 
into  the  house  and  the  cottage  again,  and  even  up  into 
the  nursery.  He  also,  like  Morris,  practising  art  in 
decorative  as  well  as  pictorial  form,  would  have  it  enter 
into  all  work  and  every  life.  I may  be  permitted  to 
quote  what  Mr.  Clausen  has  said  of  the  technical 
merits  of  this  portrait : ‘ Apart  from  its  truth  as  a por- 
trait, all  artists  admire  this  picture  for  the  beautiful 
way  its  colour  is  managed.  All  the  different  elements, 
the  white  collar,  the  flesh,  the  coat,  and  the  background 
are  in  such  true  relation  to  each  other ; and  though 
the  range  from  light  to  dark  is  very  great,  yet  the 
collar — the  brightest  light — is  not  actually  white  paint, 
and  the  shadows  have  no  suggestion  of  black.  This 
picture  shows  how  delicate  and  true  were  W atts’s  per- 
ceptions ; and  also  how  strong  and  clear.’ 


HERR  JOACHIM 


PORTRAITURE 


73 


Music  must  not  be  forgotten  ; for  it  gave  us  one  of 
Watts’s  masterpieces.  The  portrait  of  Sir  Charles 
Halle,  painted  in  earlier  days  than  most  of  us  can 
recollect,  should  not  be  overlooked ; but  that  of  Dr. 
Joachim,  a lamplight  study  made  at  Little  Holland 
House,  while  the  great  master  was  actually  playing  the 
violin,  is  the  very  soul  of  music  : the  face  is  thinking 
and  feeling  it ; the  fingers  that  lightly  hold  the  bow, 
and  those  that  touch  the  strings,  are  expressing  it. 

The  portraits  that  Watts  painted  of  himself,  those 
of  the  master  of  all  this  marvellous  show,  have, 
perhaps  not  unfitly,  been  reserved  to  the  last.  The 
one  of  the  eager,  wide-eyed  youth  of  seventeen  years 
has  already  been  mentioned.  Passing  without  com- 
ment one  of  himself  in  armour,  painted  during  his 
stay  in  Florence,  we  come  to  the  one  of  1853,  in  an 
Italian  robe.  This  is  the  grave,  thoughtful  ‘ Signor,’ 
and  the  picture  is  known  as  ‘The  Venetian  Senator.’ 
In  1864  was  painted  the  portrait  now  in  the  Tate 
Gallery,  as  the  gift  of  Sir  William  Bowman.  A 
reproduction  of  it  forms  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume, 
and  one  need  only  note  the  earnest,  gentle  kindliness 
of  the  expression.  Finally  there  is  the  portrait  of 
1904,  left  unfinished  when  death  had  bidden  the  hand 
to  cease  from  work,  and  still  lovingly  retained,  as  well 
it  may  be,  in  the  studio  at  Limnerslease.  It  is  the 


174  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

spirit  rather  than  the  form  of  the  master.  The  eyes 
look  inward  now.  There  is  the  calm  of  one  who 
without  fear  awaits  the  summons  of  the  Messenger ; 
the  final  solemnity  of  one  who  has  long  kept  watch 
over  man’s  mortality,  and  whose  thoughts  are  turning 
now  towards  the  light  beyond  the  shadow. 


X 


CONCLUSION 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  in  this  concluding  chapter 
— which  the  reader  will  find  to  be  concerned  with 
various  things,  like  an  ‘ omnibus  ^ Act  of  Parliament — 
is  to  make  reference  to  several  pictures  hitherto  un- 
mentioned. We  have  been  grouping  Watts’s  works 
according  to  their  subject-matter ; and  like  those  who 
string  beads  together,  we  find  at  the  end  that  some  have 
not  been  easy  to  fit  in.  It  is  not  intended  to  refer  in 
this  little  book  to  every  one  of  Watts’s  pictures  ; but 
there  are  several  that  would  always  reproach  us  were 
they  left  unnamed. 

First  among  these  is  The  Teople  that  sat  in  Darkness, 
illustrating  a passage  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah  that  will  be 
familiar  to  every  reader.  The  picture,  like  the 
prophet’s  words,  is  a message  to  all  who  have  been 
without  light  and  without  hope — or  with  only  the  ho])e 
that  is  akin  to  despair.  Light  has  roused  those  who 
have  long  been  in  darkness  ; it  is  so  glorious  that  they 

175 


176  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

arc  bewildered  by  it ; and  they  look  towards  it,  in- 
credulous as  yet  that  it  can  really  be  rising  upon  them. 
The  picture  has  more  than  an  individual  reference ; 
indeed,  primarily  so.  Its  appeal  is  to  those  who  work 
together  for  the  uplifting  of  humanity,  in  faith  that 
always  and  in  all  things  night  must  pass  into  day.  The 
subject  is  treated  as  only  a Watts  could  treat  it.  The 
light  is  one  that  must  prevail,  that  will  drive  the  dark- 
ness utterly  away,  not  allowing  it  to  lurk  in  any  hole 
or  corner. 

This  picture  is  perhaps  the  most  important  of  those 
that  had  to  be  mentioned  here.  Three  figure  subjects, 
A Roman  Lady — in  the  Birmingham  Art  Gallery — 
A Venetian  Lady,  and  A Condottiere,  are  pictorial 
epitomes  of  history.  The  Roman  lady  has  all  the 
haughtiness  and  the  barbaric  splendour — the  Romans 
were  only  relatively  not  barbarians — of  the  imperial 
city  ; the  V enetian  lady  recalls  the  wealth  and  glorious 
colour  of  Venice;  the  Condottiere,  ‘like  the  armour 
he  wears,  represents  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  middle 
ages.’  Another  picture  relating  to  this  period,  and 
entitled  A Venetian  Nobleman,  might  well  have  for  a 
sub-title  A Souvenir  of  Titian.  This  was  how  Watts 
gave  expression  to  the  effect  that  the  story  of  Rome 
and  of  the  great  Italian  cities  had  upon  him.  Turner 
did  so  by  means  of  magnificent  architectural  composi- 


CONCLUSION 


77 


tions,  with  crowds  of  people,  and  galleys  or  gondolas, 
and,  at  times,  representations  of  momentous  events,  as 
in  his  Hannibal  crossing  the  Alps, 

Three  other  pictures  by  Watts  may  be  linked  into 
a short  chain : T he  Daughter  of  Herodias,  in  the 

splendour  of  sensuality  and  pride ; The  Magdalen,^  in 
the  sad  hues  of  spiritual  abasement ; and  Lad;p  Godiz^a, 
a picture  of  a woman’s  chivalry ; she  faints  away 
into  the  arms  of  her  attendants,  after  the  fearful  strain 
of  her  devoted  heroism ; but  the  colour  is  bright,* 
because  the  moment,  after  all,  is  a joyous  one. 

The  last  picture  we  must  mention  here  is  A Dedica- 
tion^  a solemn-hued  picture,  in  which  a woman  bends, 
weeping,  over  slaughtered  birds,  lying  on  an  altar.  It 
is  dedicated  ‘ to  all  who  love  the  beautiful  and  mourn 
over  the  senseless  and  cruel  destruction  of  bird  life  and 
beauty.’  Probably  some  would  say  that  the  choice  of 
such  a subject,  while  giving  evidence  of  Watts’s 
kindliness,  is  an  instance  of  his  tendency  to  strain  the 
didactic  use  of  art.  W e will  not  argue  the  point ; 
but  will  rather  quote  Tennyson  once  more  : 

Sweet  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  would  that  he  were  here  again, 
He  that  in  his  Catholic  wholeness  used  to  call  the  very  flowers 
Sisters,  brothers — and  the  beasts — whose  pains  are  hardly  less 
than  ours ! 

No,  we  have  not  finished  yet.  Mid-day  Rest  must 

M 


178  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 

be  mentioned,  the  huge  picture — there  is  a small  version 
of  it  at  Limnerslease— of  dray-horses  and  their  driver, 
which  reminds  us  that  Watts  seems  to  have  been 
attracted,  as  painter  and  sculptor,  to  no  animal  except 
the  horse ; but  this,  man’s  chief  companion,  along  with 
the  dog,  among  the  lower  animals.  Watts  in  several 
pictures  has  finely  rendered,  in  its  strength  and  its 
beauty,  and  also,  we  may  say,  in  its  pride. 

Having  thus  quietened  conscience  with  regard  to 
pictures  not  mentioned  in  earlier  chapters  we  turn  to  a 
minor,  but  still,  probably,  for  some  readers,  important 
point.  Reference  has  repeatedly  been  made  to  the 
pictures  by  W atts  in  the  national  collection  at  the  T ate 
Gallery,  most  of  them  there  by  his  own  gift ; to  the 
portraits  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  also  by  his 
gift ; and  to  the  collection  of  pictures  at  Limnerslease, 
accessible  to  the  public  in  accordance  with  his  desire 
and  the  provisions  of  his  will.  There  are  many 
people,  however,  in  the  populous  districts  of  the  north 
of  England  who  may  seldom,  if  ever,  be  able  to  see 
these  collections,  and  who  may  be  glad  to  know  that 
in  the  art  galleries  of  Manchester  they  can  see  The 
Good  Samaritan,  Love  and  Death,  a large  cartoon  of 
The  Court  of  Death,  Prayer,  portraits  of  Motley,  the 
historian,  and  Mr.  Charles  Rickards,  who  was  a 
collector  of  W atts’s  works  ; and  also  several  drawings 


CONCLUSION 


179 

from  his  paintings,  done  by  himself  in  red  chalk,  and, 
representing  his  sculpture,  the  Medusa,  in  marble.  The 
first  three  of  these  works  were  given  to  Manchester  by 
W atts.  He  never  lost  his  interest  in  the  native  city  of 
Thomas  Wright,  the  prison  philanthropist,  whose 
good  deeds,  as  already  stated,  aroused  his  admiration, 
and  led  to  the  painting  of  T^he  Good  Samaritan,  Three 
drawings,  including  T^he  People  that  sat  in  Darkness^ 
were  presented  by  his  executors  to  the  Manchester 
Whitworth  Institute — where  are  the  Love  and  Death, 
and  the  other  chalk  drawings — under  the  provisions  of 
his  will.  Salford  has  a Meeting  of  Jacob  and  Esau. 

Not  much  need  be  said  in  the  way  of  recapitulation 
and  emphasis.  It  has  been  shown,  one  may  venture 
to  hope,  that  only  by  the  singling  out  of  a few  of 
Watts’s  pictures,  and  by  a mistaken  interpretation  even 
of  these,  can  he  be  regarded,  as  some  have  regarded 
him,  as  hardly  more  than  a hypochondriac  preacher, 
bidding  men  think  little  but  evil  of  life.  It  is  true 
that  ill-health  weighed  upon  his  spirits  and  aggravated 
the  frequent  depression  he  shared  with  all  who  feel 
deeply  the  consequences  of  wrong-doing  and  error. 
But  his  outlook  on  life  was  perfectly  wholesome.  The 
passage  already  quoted  from  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  in 
which  Watts  is  described  as  the  gloomiest  of  all  our 
painters,  is  a mere  caricature. 


8o  GEORGE  EREDERICK  WATTS 


We  have  already  seen  that  the  love  of  children, 
and  song  and  playfulness,  found  their  place  in  his 
private  life ; and,  once  at  least,  he  let  the  world  at 
large  see  that  he  was  not  lacking  in  the  sense  of 
humour  ; for  did  he  not,  in  one  instance,  depart  from 
the  serious  treatment  of  the  human  drama  and  paint 
a picture  showing  the  anxiety  of  the  faithful  spouse 
of  the  first  man  who,  in  far-off  prehistoric  times, 
ventured  upon  so  unlikely-looking  an  article  of  food  as 
an  oyster  ? That  he  was  far  from  morbid  asceticism 
in  thought  and  temperament  we  might  gather,  if  from 
no  other  source,  yet  from  this  passage  in  one  of  his 
essays : ‘ Light,  amusing  writing  and  playful  art  are  not 
undervalued,  these  being  often  admirable,  and  having  a 
very  v/holesome  influence  not  to  be  spared  in  a hard- 
working world.’  It  was  to  strengthen  the  foundations 
of  goodness,  joy  and  beauty  in  this  hard-w'orking  world 
that  Watts  toiled  ceaselessly  through  the  years  of  a 
long  life.  And  if  we  need  further  evidence  of  his 
essential  sanity  and  courage,  we  shall  find  it  in  the 
witness  borne  by  those  who  knew  him  well,  parti- 
cularly his  fellow-artists,  to  the  bracing  effect  of  inter- 
course with  him.  This  is  the  late  Sir  Wyke  Bayliss’s 
tribute  to  him;  ‘Temperate,  intrepid,  generous,  pat- 
riotic, strong,  courageous,  tender,  compassionate,  loyal 
in  friendship — these  are  the  characteristics  of  the  man.’ 
And  the  man  reveals  himself  in  his  art. 


CONCLUSION 


8i 


Need  anything  more  be  said  about  the  alleged  sacri- 
fice of  beauty  to  meaning  in  his  work  ? The  conten- 
tion here  is  that  even  if  there  were  such  sacrifice,  it  was 
only  rare ; and  that,  in  most  instances,  where  the 
sacrifice  is  alleged,  there  is,  in  fact,  only  subordination. 
That  in  every  work  of  art,  beauty  should  be  the  first 
and  last  consideration,  and  that  ethical  or  spiritual  aim 
should  ever  take  a second  place — if  this  be  the  criterion, 
then  Watts’s  work  will  often  fail  to  meet  the  test. 
But  if,  while  beauty  is  present,  the  purpose  of  the 
picture  so  engrosses  our  attention  that  the  beauty  is  felt 
rather  than  seen,  until  we  set  ourselves  studiously  to 
observe  it,  then  it  is  only  rarely  that  any  fault  can  be 
found. 

This  is  not  to  say  that,  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view, 
his  work  was  always,  or  almost  always  faultless ; but  only 
that  purpose  and  beauty  of  expression  went  together 
in  it,  in  due  relation.  His  work  was  not  ‘faultily 
faultless.’  He  was  no  stylist,  though  style  was  con- 
spicuous in  his  art.  There  is  much  that  is  tentative, 
experimental  in  his  work.  He  was  ever  reaching  out 
after  better  things.  He  had  largely  to  find  his  own 
way  in  art.  No  one  knew'  this  better  than  himself. 
His  greatness  would  have  been  much  more  obvious  had 
he  lived  in  the  great  days  of  art,  when  architecture, 
sculpture  and  painting  were  in  close  alliance,  and  art- 


82  GEORGE  FREDERICK  WATTS 


workers  of  every  kind  were  supported  by  widespread 
public  interest ; when,  indeed,  art  pervaded  the  life  and 
work  of  the  people.  "W  atts  and  his  contemporaries  were 
pulling  against  the  stream.  He  was  himself  obliged  to 
say : ‘ If  with  increased  acuteness  in  some  directions, 
sense  of  beauty  is  passing  away  as  a natural  possession 
(and  the  ugliness  of  modern  life  points  to  it),  art  must 
die  in  spite  of  every  conscious  effort  that  can  be  made.^ 
The  highest  genius  cannot  fully  express  itself  under 
such  conditions. 

From  a comparative  estimate  of  his  work  one  may 
well  shrink  ; and,  indeed,  it  is  beyond  the  purpose 
of  this  little  book  to  attempt  to  make  one.  Cer- 
tainly in  lofty  appeal  to  thought  and  feeling — and 
appeal  that  goes  home — he  falls  behind  no  artist  of 
this,  or  perhaps  any,  age.  In  his  own  country  his  art, 
both  in  colour  and  design,  was  surpassed  by  that  of  no 
painter  of  his  time,  and  his  accomplishment  in  sculp- 
ture, though  not  great  in  amount,  was  fine  in  quality. 
We  may,  perhaps,  most  readily  grasp  the  value  of  his 
contribution  to  English  art  in  the  nineteenth  century 
by  considering  what  loss  that  art  would  suffer  had  we 
to  strike  out  his  name  from  its  annals,  even  though  we 
retained  the  names  of  such  subject  and  portrait  painters 
as  Madox  Brown,  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Leighton, 
Rossetti  and  Burne-Jones.  We  could  ill  spare  any 


CONCLUSION 


183 

of  them  ; for  each  made  his  peculiar  contribution, 
differing  from  that  of  the  others  in  subject,  force,  style 
or  beauty.  But  Watts  we  could  spare,  perhaps,  least 
of  all.  If  we  look  for  his  compeers  abroad,  we  pause 
at  such  names  as  Boecklin  and  Lenbach  in  Germany 
and  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in  France.  We  need  not 
add  name  to  name,  or  elaborate  either  contrast  or 
comparison  ; it  is  enough  to  say  that  it  is  only  the 
foremost  artists  in  any  country  whose  names  we  can 
link  with  that  of  Watts.  In  his  life  and  thought  and 
art,  he  ever  strove,  with  powers  to  which  such  strife 
ensured  a high  achievement,  to  be  faithful  to  the 
motto  of  his  choice  : ‘ The  utmost  for  the  highest.’ 


Permanent  Reproductions  of  the  portraits 
and  pictures  by  G.  F.  Pf'attSy  R.A.^  can  be 
obtained  from  Fredk.  Holly  er  at  his  Studio^ 
9,  Pembroke  Square,  Kensington,  JV. 

■All  the  reproductions  ’were  submitted  to 
and  appronjed  by  Mr.  Watts,  and  pub- 
lished with  his  consent. 

Illustrated  Catalogue  One  Shilling. 


INDEX 


The  titles  of  pictures,  portraits  and  statuary  are  printed 
in  italics 


A 

jibely  The  Death  ofy  io6 
Academy,  Royal,  58 
Adam  and  Eve^  The  Denuncia- 
tion ofy  10^ 

After  the  T)elugey  135 
After glotVy  Scotlandy  14 1 
Alfred  inciting  the  Saxons j etc., 
4* 

All-Tervadingy  They  125 

AlpSy  Sunset  on  they  141 

Araraty  135 

Arcadioy  80,  90 

Ariadne  in  Naxosy  31,  113,  134 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  63 

Arnoldy  Matthe'Wy  170 

Asia  Minor y 138 

Aspirationsy  84, 88,  90,  158,  159 

Auroray  33,  74 

11 

Bayliss,  Sir  Wyke,  quoted,  140, 
180 

Behnes,  William,  sculptor,  31 


Blake,  William,  aim  of  his  art, 
I ; his  art  compared  with 
that  of  Watts,  22,  74,  107, 
126;  and  English  greenery, 
H3 

Boccaccioy  *A  Story  fromy  49 
Boothy  Sir  Charlesy  167 
Boivmany  Sir  fP'illiam,  167 
Bramley,  Mr.  Frank,  his  pic- 
ture tA  Hopeless  Danvtiy  20 
Britomarty  85 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  3,  46 
Browning,  Mrs.,  quoted,  65 
Broiuningy  Robert,  170 
Building  the  *Ark,  134,  136 
Burne-jonesy  Sir  Edward,  171 
BurnSy  Johny  166 


c 

Cainy  The  Death  of,  106 
Campbell,  Lord,  167 
Can  these  Bones  live?  ii,  102, 
»37.  H5 


i86 


INDEX 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  Brindley, 
163 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  167 
Chaos,  91,9+ 

Chcsncau,  M.,  quoted,  2 
Childhood  of  Zeus,  The,  68 
Clausen,  Mr.  George,  quoted, 
II,  172 
Clytie,  55 

Condottiere,  tA,  176 
Corsica,  139 

Court  af  Death,  The,  71,  115, 
118 

Crane,  Walter,  172 
Cruel  Vengeance,  loi,  124 


D 

Dante,  quoted,  127 
Daphne,  77 

Darnley,  The  Countess  of, 
Darwin,  Charles,  162 
Daughter  of  Herodias,  The,  177 
Davey,  Lord,  167 
Daivn,  74,  90 

Death  Crowning  Innocence,  1 1 8 

Dedication,  A,  177 

Dene,  Miss  Dorothy,  1 59 

Destiny,  98,  136 

Dove  that  returned.  The,  135 

Dove  that  returned  not.  The,  135 

Dufferin,  Lord,  166 


Dweller  tn  the  Innermost,  The, 
67,  120,  125 

E 

End  of  the  T)ay,  146 
Endymion,  76 
Esau,  108,  137 
Europa,  77 

Eve,  The  Creation  of,  105,  134 
j Eve,  Tppentant,  106 
j Eve,  Tempted,  105 

F 

Faith,  129 

Fata  Morgana,  89,  134 
Fildes,  Sir  Luke,  his  picture 
The  Doctor,  20 

‘For  he  had  Great  Possessions,’  89 
Found  Drowned,  42 
Freshwater,  143 
Fugue,  71 

G 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  32 
Qalahad,  Sir,  86,  89,  90,  134, 

158,  159 

Qaribaldi,  165 
Qarvagh,  Lady,  157 
Giotto,  his  picture  Hope  128 
Qladstone,  W.  E.,  165 
(jodiva.  Lady,  177 


INDEX 


187 


Qood  Luc\  to  your  Fishing  ! 70 
Qood  Samaritan^  The,  42,  137 
Qood’will^  100 
Qrtek^  Idyll,  ^,69 
(jreen  Summer,  144 
Quiderlus,  Arviragus,  and  ^e- 
larius,  33. 

Qurney,  Mr.  Russell,  167  ] 

H 

Habit  does  not  ma\e  the  Monk, 
The,  71 

Halls,  Sir  Charles,  173 
Hapf>y  Warrior,  The,  88 
Hardy,  Mr.  Thomas,  . his 
Dynasts  referred  to,  13  j 

Harrison,  Frederic,  quoted,  1 23  1 
Ha’ivksha’iv,  Sir  John,  163  ! 

Haydon,  B.  R.,  Watts  on  the  j 
art  of,  6,  7 j 

Hebraism  and  Hellenism,  62-  ; 

65 

Highlands,  In  the,  159 
Hogarth,  William,  1 
Holland,  Lord,  35,  41,  50 
Homer,  27 
Hood,  Thomas,  42 
Hope,  128 

Hunt,  W.  Holman,  3,  43,  44, 

45 

Hyperion,  75 


I 

Idle  Child  of  Fancy,  The,  88,  128 
Vm  Afloat,  69 

In  the  Land  of  Weissnichtwo,  7 1 
lonides.  Miss  Agathonike,  33 
lonides,  Mr.  Constantine,  33 
Iris,  76 

Irish  Peasants  during  the  Famine, 
42 

Isle  of  Cos,  The,  138. 

J 

Jacob  and  Esau,  Meeting  0^  108, 

137 

Joachim,  Herr,  173 
Jonah,  103 

K 

Katie,  159 

L 

Labour  and  Greed,  1 24 
Laivrence,  Lord,  164 
Lecky,  IV.  E.  H.,  169 
Leighton,  Lord,  155,  172 
Lely,  Sir  Peter,  Head  of  a Lady 
after,  151 
Life's  Illusions,  42 
Lilford,  Lady,  157 
Lilian,  159 

Limnerslease,  collection  of 
works  by  Watts  at,  18 


i88 


INDEX 


Lincoln’s  Inn,  mural  painting 
at,  37,  46-48,  91 
Lcc/i  ^uth'veny  141 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  quoted,  65 
Lonsdale,  Bishop,  monument 
to,  56 

Lothian,  Marquess  of,  monu- 
ment to,  56 

Lovt  and  Deaths  20,  117 
Lo’ve  and  Life,  67,  116 
Lo’ve  steering  the  Boat  of  Hu- 
manity, 134 

Love  Triumphant,  121,  136 
Lyons,  ^Admiral  Lord,  165 

M 

Macintosh,  Miss  Lilian,  159 
Alagdalen,  The,  177 
Mammon,  8,  90,  102,  124 
Manchester,  42,  178 
Manning,  Cardinal,  155,  168 
Martineau,  "Dr,  James,  168 
Masaccio,  104 
Medusa,  55,  179 
Meredith,  Qeorge,  171 
Messenger,  The,  n8 
Mid-day  Rest,  177 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  quoted,  100 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  167 
Millais,  Sir  J.  E.,  3,  43,  45 
Minotaur,  The,  8,  90,  101,  124 
Mischief,  89,  134 


Morris,  William,  171 
Motley,  J.  L.,  169,  178 
Mount  Temple^  Lady,  157 
Muther,  Herr,  quoted,  36 

N 

Naples,  139 
Naples,  ^ay  of, 

Nevill,  Lady  Dorothy,  152 
Nile,  The,  138 

O 

Olympus  on  Ida,  72 
Ophelia,  114 

Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  15,  112 
P 

Panioizi,  Sir  Anthony,  169 
Paolo  and  Francesca  da  Rimini, 
1 10 

! Parasite,  145 

Parliament,  Houses  of,  compe- 
titions for  decoration  of,  33, 

41 

Patient  Life  of  Unrequited  Toil, 
<lA,  16 

Patmore,  Coventry,  his  Angel 
in  the  House  quoted,  8 
Peace  and  Qoodnuill,  99 
People  that  sat  in  Darkness,  The, 

42»  175 

I Physical  Energy,  55,  57 


INDEX  189 


PlutuSf  The  Wife  of  80 
Pope,  Alexander,  quoted,  8 
Prayer,  67,  1 25 

Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  3, 

43,  45 

Pretty  Lucy  Bond,  159 
Prinsep,  Lt.-Gen.  Arthur,  159 
Prinsep,  Henry  Thoby,  50 
Prinsep,  Sir  Henry  Thoby,  1 59 
Prinsep,  Valentine,  159 
Prodigal  Son,  The,  109,  137 
Progress,  56,  103 
Prometheus,  78 
Promises,  70 
Psyche,  10,  ii2 
Psyche,  Lord  Leighton’s,  10 
Pygmalion,  The  Wife  of  %o 


R 

Rain  Cloud,  tA,  142 

Rain  it  raincth  every  Day,  The, 

52,  159 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  32,  146 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  164 
Richmond,  Sir  W.  B.,  quotes 
Watts,  10 
Roberts,  Lord,  165 
Roman  Lady,  tA,  176 
Rossetti,  T>ante  G.,  171 
Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  3,  43, 
45  j Soothsay,  referred  to. 


58  ; his  sonnet  and  drawing 
Found,  III 

Ruskin,  John,  27, 44,  148, 149, 
163 


I 


I 

i 

i 


S 

St.  tAgnese,  Mentone,  139 
St,  George  and  the  Dragon,  4 1 
Salisbury,  Lord,  165 
Samson,  137 
Savoy,  140 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  27 
Sems  tress.  The,  42 
Senior,  Mrs.  PCassau,  157 
Shaftsbury,  Lord,  167 
Sic  transit  gloria  mundi,  120 
Sisters,  The,  157 
Sizeranne,  M.  de  la,  quoted, 
18,  83,  132 

Slumber  of  the  *Ages,  The,  97 
Somers,  Countess,  157 
Sower  of  the  Systems,  The,  94 
Sphinx,  The,  138 
Spielmann,  Mr.  M,  H.,  quoted, 

50 

Spirit  of  Christianity,  The,  1 30 
Spirit  of  Qreel^  Toetry,  The,  64 
Spring,  159 
Stephen,  Leslie,  169 
Stratford  de  Tpdelife,  L ord,  1 6 6 
Sun,  Earth  and  Moon.  66 
Surrey  Woodlands,  146 


INDEX 


190 

Swinhurney  t/i.  G.,  170 
Symonds,  John  Addington, 
quoted,  40 

T 

Talbotf  The  Ladies^  157 
TayloTf  Sir  Henry ^ 1 70 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  and 
Watts,  143  ; quoted,  93,  98, 
100,  125,  126,  1 3 1,  144, 

154,  177 

Tennysony  tAlfredy  Lardy  169  ; 

monument  to,  56 
Time,  Death  and  Judgmenty  9, 
120 

Titian,  Watts  on  portrait  paint- 
ing of,  38 

Tolstoy,  his  What  is  *Art  ? 
quoted,  18 

Trifles  light  as  tAiry  7 1 
Turner,  J.  M.W.,  12-16,  133, 
176 

U 

Uldray  77 

Una  and  the  Red  Cross  Knight, 

84,  134 

Under  a Dry  tArchivay,  42 

V 

Vandycky  32 
Fenetian  Lady,  A,  176 


Venetian  Noblemany  tA,  176 
Vertumnus  and  Pomonay  33 
Vie%v  in  Surrey y 145 

W 

Watchmany  What  of  the  Night  ? 

84 

Watts,  George  Frederick,  aims 
of  art  of,  1-24;  on  Turner’s 
art,  15  ; subject-matter  of  art 
of  compared  with  Turner’s, 
12-16  j compared  with 
Blake,  22  j birth,  25  ; prede- 
cessors and  contemporaries, 
26  ; ancestry,  26  5 a Celt  ? 
26  J chronic  ill-health,  27  ; 
education,  27  ; the  Bible, 
Homer,  Scott,  27-29  j early 
art-training,  29  ; the  Elgin 
Marbles  and  Behnes  the 
sculptor,  30-32  ; first  pic- 
tures at  Royal  Academy, 

32  J early  pictures,  32  and 

33  ; Houses  of  Parliament 
competitions,  33,  41  ; visit 
to  Italy,  34  and  35  ; Italian 
art,  criticism  and  influences, 
35-41  ; work  on  return  to 
England,  42  ; accompanies 
expedition  to  Halicarnassus, 
45  ; mural  paintings  at  Lin- 
coln’s Inn  and  elsewhere, 


INDEX 


46-50  ; recreations,  51  j 
Little  Holland  House,  51  j 
maps  out  life-work,  52  j 
technical  methods,  53-55  ; 
sculpture,  55  and  56  j mar- 
riage, 56  ; travels  in  Italy 
and  the  East,  56  ; interests 
outside  art,  56-58}  honours, 
58  and  59 } death,  59 ; 
Hebraism  and  Hellenism, 
61-68;  conceived  epic  of 
human  life  and  destiny, 
91-93;  compared  with 
Tennyson,  143  ; portraits 
of  himself,  173  ; gifts  and 
bequests  of  works  to  public 
galleries,  178  and  179; 
wholesome  outlook  on  life, 
179  and  180;  character- 
istics, 180;  expression  and 


191 

beauty  in  art  of,  181  ; place 
among  modern  artists,  182 
and  183  ; quoted,  i,  4,  5, 
6,  7»  »5»  23,  36,  38,  39,45, 
58,  59,  66,  153,  154,  180, 
182 

Watts,  Mrs.,  56,  57 
Whence^  Whither?  97,  136 
Whitechapel  Exhibitions, 
Canon  Barnett’s,  20 
Wordsworth,  William,  quoted, 
64,  72,  87 

IVounded  Heroriy  Thcj  32 
Wright,  Thomas,  42,  167 
Wyndhanty  Hon.  c3/rr,  *Percyy 
>57 

Z 

ZenSf  The  Childhood  ofy  90,  1 34 


PLYMOUTH 

W.  BRHNDON  AND  SON, 


, LIMITEP 


FRINTEUS 


